Forgive And Forget
by Onions Make Me Cry
Summary: [1x2] AC 197. When Duo calls in a favor that goes terribly awry, the boy finds himself living with a spy disguised as a friend... a friend whose job it is to see to it that the braided boy never again regains that which is most precious to him. His memory
1. The Accidental Procedure

**Author's Note**: Okay, I wrote this soooooo fast. So fast. Like lightning. I always wanted to do an amnesia fic, and at last I've started on the road to glory! Or... semi-fame, anyway. I spent all class today chatting my friend Danny up about what would he do if he were a government assassin with amnesia like in the Bourne Identity, and whether or not he would go along with it if the environment had been more secure. He mostly seemed puzzled and sleepy, but I got a lot of good ideas by brainstorming out loud at him. So look forward to really SWEET plot developnents and an ass load of really really sneaky twists!

Anyway, write me comments like it's going out of style! I need some harsh judgement early on, I'm thinking.

Thanks for giving me a read!

-Onions

ps- I don't own gundam anything. (Or anything at all. Well, maybe my shoes...)

* * *

**Title:** Forgive and Forget 

**Author:** Onions Make Me Cry

**Pairing:** 2 x 1 x 2 and some misc others...

**Rating:** chapter 1: pg-13 for language

**Description:** (After Colony 197) When Duo calls in a favor that goes terribly awry, the boy finds himself living with a spy disguised as a

friend... a friend whose job it is to see to it that the braided boy never again regains that which is most precious to him; his memory.

* * *

Main Entry: **amnesia**

Pronunciation: am-'nE-zh&

Function: noun

1 : loss of memory sometimes including the memory of personal identity due to brain injury, shock, fatigue, repression, medical process, illness or sometimes induced by anesthesia suffering from amnesia and unable to identify himself a period of amnesia after the wreck

2 : a gap in one's memory an amnesia concerning her high-school years

* * *

_**Forgive and Forget **_

by Onions Make Me Cry

Part I- The Accidental Procedure

* * *

"You realize, Duo, that once you take this step, you won't be able to go back again." 

"Yeah, yeah... get on with it, would you?"

"I just want you to be completely informed before we proceed."

"Well I'll fucking change my mind again if you keep babbling specifics at me. So shut up, huh? Just plug me in, old man."

"Mr. Maxwell..."

Duo sat on the cold lab floor in a heap, and idly traced circles in the air with a ballpoint pen. He didn't look up when the other gentleman addressed him, but seemed fixated on some distant point in the corner.

"You understand that the procedure is a dangerous one? The repercussions for returning you to your original state after you've gone through with the entire process would be catastrophic." The Doctor frowned, and the look dug deep into his face as he stared down his nose at his patient. "Possibly even fatal?"

"Jesus Christ, I didn't know I was that much of a ticking time bomb..."

"You have to look at the situation realistically."

A quiet settled for a moment, and all that could be heard in the sterile white room for the space of a few breaths was the hum of the odd six or eight pieces of undisclosed equipment as they stood ready and online.

"I guess you're right." The slap of a pen on cold tile floor. "...I'm no good like this, am I?"

"Now I didn't say that..."

"But you agree, Don't you?" The boy interjected a little forcefully. "I mean, come on... you should know me front and back by now. I've told you everything." For the first time, Duo pulled his eyes from the floor and shot the aging Doctor a sarcastic look. "The whole fucking story, twelve point font, typed and stapled and on your desk wrapped in a ribbon. True blue, man... and I didn't even censor anything."

The doctor removed his spectacles, and rubbed them quietly for a few moments in the tail of his white lab coat. "Yes, I've read the social history. I know all the statistics, Mr. Maxwell, all your facts. But I'm not entirely sure you do. The process is a risky one. And, you would be letting go of a lot of precious things."

Duo looked away again as the old man set his glasses back on his nose. "I didn't pay you to question my judgement. So just do it, would you?"

The quiet lingered on for a few more precious heavy seconds as the Doctor watched the young man sulking on the tile. The Maxwell boy seemed strangely vulnerable as he sat with his legs drawn into a loose lotus fold, and briefly, the old man paused to wonder at him. How could a child have accomplished so much? Or, more pertinently, destroyed so much? And at such a tender age... more than anything, it was Duo's youth that the Doctor lamented. To see a hardened soldier peering out through the luminous eyes of a sixteen year old boy suddenly felt as if the price of it were worse than two wars and a lifetime of suffering combined. Suddenly it was more than enough of a reason to perform the service Mr. Maxwell had requested. Suddenly, the decision was easier now that he was face to face with it.

"Alright then, young man. I can't do anything with you on the floor, so you had better get up."

The boy stood, and wore for a split second what seemed like an expression of apprehension. But when the Doctor looked again, there was only stony resolve, and the smaller figure walked sedately across the room and hefted himself onto the examination table, where he laid himself out.

Rolling his head to the side, Duo shot the doctor a mirthless grin. "Lets get this show on the road."

* * *

_The chess game lay on the table half finished, as Quatre, Trowa and Heero sat quietly around it conversing amongst themselves. They looked almost like statues from the entrance of the room, Duo could remember thinking, as he himself stood leaning against the wall at the door. The shuttle was dingy, and their space suits were the kind of muted gray that had the tendency to sink into the background if you didn't search out for them right away– sort of like granite, or even cement. Only the white chess pieces, and Quatre's pale blonde hair stood out with any kind of definition. They sat with stony expressions, muttering in gravely tones with one another. It would have almost been sad if it hadn't been for other more distracting thoughts. Like the battle they'd been tottering on the edge of for the past six to eight hours, waiting for their call– waiting to make their move. It was hanging in a limbo like this that really made a guy look around. Made him think about virtually anything other than the inevitable fight that they were all about to be thrown into head first, whether or not they liked it._

"_-checked again with Wufei, but he wasn't in the hangar, so I came back here." Quatre murmured on, droning a little to Trowa, who was sitting closest to the blonde with his head inclined to the side. "I just don't know where he could be, if he wasn't there. I thought I might make sandwiches, but I'd want him here for it, you know?" _

_The Latin nodded sedately. _

_The thing about Trowa, Duo thought with some amusement, was that you could never tell if he was actually on edge or not. The expression he wore now would have probably been the same if he'd been wearing a bunny suit at a birthday party. Only his friends knew better than to think he was unaffected by an approaching battle. _

"_Maybe he's in the loo." Trowa suggested blandly. Quatre gave him a blank look, and shrugged. _

"_Maybe. I just wish we were all here. I'm going sort of stir-crazy." Giving a little sigh, the blonde fell onto his arms, leaning heavily on the table. After a silence, he looked over Trowa and down at Heero, who was sitting in front of the chess board looking blandly irritated. "You haven't seen Wufei, have you, Heero?" _

_The stony-faced youth looked over to Quatre and shook his head. _

"_Hmm." The arab sighed, but didn't question further. Turning to Trowa again, they began to talk softly on something apparently private. _

_Staring at the chess board, Heero picked up a white pawn and hunched over the table as well. He leaned on his forearm as Quatre was doing, but kept his hands free to spin the game piece between the free fingers of his right hand. (From against the wall, Duo watched him as he played with the tiny pawn, and for a moment almost went to take it out of his hand. The idleness of the whole motion seemed wrong, especially for Heero, who was never bored, or absent about anything.)_

_The piece went round and round, and sitting in the quiet, Heero gave a little breathy sigh... something which was almost undetectable, if not for the little slag his head made as he leaned a little bit farther forward. _

_Duo continued to watch, and tilted his own head, beginning to change his mind. He decided that there was also something vaguely disarming about the game Heero was playing. The casual way he spun the piece between his thin fingers seemed so natural that it was almost as if someone else were sitting in his place and doing it instead of him. Smiling slightly, the braided pilot allowed some of his irritation to seep away, and a small amount of amusement to sink into it's place instead. Apparently, even the great Heero Yuy got the pre-battle jitters. At least a little, anyway. _

"_Stop it." _

_The command cut through the silence, and even Quatre and Trowa paused in their conversation to look over at Heero. For the first time, he looked up from the chess piece, and fixed Duo with an accusatory glare._

"_Stop staring at me." _

_Duo stood up a little straighter, and instantly assumed a look of dumbfounded innocence. "Who, me? Just staring into space over here, man."_

_Heero settled an incriminating look on Duo for a few seconds more, then, seeming suddenly beyond the situation, grabbed his helmet off the floor and stalked out of the room. A silence lingered after him. _

"_What'd I do?" The braided boy asked, now dumbfounded for real. _

_Quatre and Trowa exchanged significant glances, before both shaking their heads. _

"_Maybe he needs to go to the loo." Trowa suggested blandly, before ducking Quatre's swing._

_

* * *

_

"Mr. Maxwell?"

Nothing. A blank space where recognition was supposed to be.

"Mr. Maxwell? Duo, try to wake up a little, if you can."

And then a ceiling. Just as white and empty and unresponsive.

"Ah, Mr. Maxwell. Welcome back. Did you sleep alright?"

From beneath the thin sheets of the hospital bed, Duo dragged his heavy lids completely open, and followed his line of vision down to an elderly doctor with tiny glasses standing at the foot of his bed. He had a kindly expression about him, though something in the boy made Duo question a vague sense of wrongness that he couldn't quite place.

Mumbling something like 'uughngyhello', the young man tried to heft himself up a little. But the Doctor almost immediately put a hand to his chest and urged him down again.

"Now now, Mr. Maxwell, you should be taking it easy!" the old man smiled a little, and glanced down at his file of papers. "Sustaining as significant a head injury as you've done yourself, you're lucky you haven't done serious damage to your brain! I understand that bills are important to pay, but part time construction may not be the job for you after this incident, as a friendly suggestion."

Duo nodded stupidly, half listening, half taking in his surroundings. He was in a pleasant single occupancy hospital room, with the second half of the folding windows tilted open to the fresh autumn breeze, and the curtains pulled to the side. Everything was white and clean, and beyond his slightly cracked door, he could see a flurry of nurses and various personnel shuffling back and forth in the hall. Something registered with him... Regency Hospital. The name sounded familiar in his head.

A head, as he touched it, that Duo found to be wrapped in gauze.

"What happened?" The braided boy found himself mumbling, as he fingered the back of his neck... it was prickling unpleasantly.

"You don't remember?" a plastic look of surprise crossed the Doctor's face. "Oh dear. Let's try this one on, then... what is your name?"

That was easy enough... "Duo." Duo said, faintly foggy. The Doctor had only said it about a hundred times. "Duo Maxwell."

"Good!" some scribbling on the clipboard at the foot of Duo's bed. "And, now... how old are you today, Mr. Maxwell?"

Another vague inclination. "Sixteen." The boy said, without thinking too deeply about it.

"Sixteen yesterday, that's true. But today is October 18th, don't you know? Your birthday says that you're seventeen today!"

"My birthday?" Those words, out of everything spoken thus far, seemed the most alien on Duo's lips. As if, the syllables weren't used to stringing themselves out together in that order. As if, almost... as if... As if Duo had never said the word before at all.

"Not too great a place for a party, huh?" The kindly Doctor chuckled a little bit, and shook his head. "Well, a visitor out in the hall thinks she has a different opinion. Shall we have a look at her, then?"

The door opened on that note, but it wasn't a girl to walk across the threshold. Only a slightly dour looking assistant nurse. He came to stand by the Doctor with a tray that Duo couldn't see into from his position.

"Ah. Larson. Thank you." Taking up a needle from the tray, the Doctor injected a vaguely yellow substance into Duo's IV, and almost instantly, the boy felt a swoon coming on him. "Now, Mr. Maxwell, I've just given you a mild sedative to help you relax. With neck and head injuries like yours, it's best to have you remain as still as possible while the healing process is taking place. You may feel some slight drowsiness. Shall I call your guest in?"

"…Yeah…" Duo mumbled, feeling more than a little disoriented by the fast pace of his conversation with the Doctor. Everything was shaded with a tone of the surreal, as if all of this were just beyond the foggy curtain of a dream. Maybe he hadn't even woken up yet. Not all the way, anyhow. "Sure. Go ahead, Doc."

Nodding with a slight smile, the old man gestured at Larson to open the door.

For a few empty moments, the door hung open and empty—it was full to the hall, and all Duo could see was the bustle and flow of doctors and nurses just beyond, as they traversed the multicolored tile floor. But then, a brightly colored head appeared suddenly out from behind the doorframe, and the boy didn't have to wonder which person was likeliest to be his guest. She was smiling, almost as if she had been an exotic violet mushroom waiting for the perfect moment to spring into existence, and now that she had, she was so enormously pleased with herself that it was enough simply to be as she was; spongy and bright.

"Hilde Schbeiker, I believe?" The Doctor chuckled as the young lady stepped carefully all the way into the room. She was wearing a bright white sun dress vaguely resembling a cupcake, with a garish floral trim. "Well, young lady, we've waited a long time, but Mr. Maxwell seems like he's going to be just fine."

"Oh!" the thin girl exclaimed, and looked genuinely relieved. "Oh, I'm so glad. I was so worried about you, Duo! You looked so awful, right before you came to see the doctor, I was afraid you'd really made yourself sick. I was so-"

"Now now, young lady," Interjected the doctor a little forcefully, and something in the back of Duo's mind faintly fired off. What was it? "It seems best not to rehash the mistake. I'm sure Mr. Maxwell will be taking more care next time he finds himself in a dangerous situation. I've advised him to stay away from construction and mechanic's jobs until he's feeling completely up to par again. He should stay relaxed for a couple of days, period, if you can manage it."

There was that nagging suspiciousness again. Duo squinted a little, trying to examine the friendly Doctor. He seemed vaguely familiar… But whatever it was that he'd been dosed was beginning to take effect, because the braided boy's vision was beginning to fuzz a little.

"Of course he'll rest. I have our room set up already."

"You'll have to keep a careful eye on him. Just… to make sure he isn't inclined to get up and go wandering when he should be recovering." The Doctor rumbled somewhere beyond Duo's line of vision, and he tried to bend to look. Soon, Hilde was conversing with him at the far side of the room, where it was harder to listen. Wasn't it bad enough that he felt like he was sleeping in a vacuum already? The way all the sounds were dulling out made Duo feel as if he should have cared quite a lot more than he did. But he didn't, for a reason which at the moment was beyond him. And so he listened as best he could.

Hilde was sounding hollow now, and distant as if she were speaking through a glass. They'd been carrying on for a few minutes privately, but something in Duo made him strain extra hard to hear as Hilde gave the Doctor a start of surprise. She gave the old man a look of shame after that, which became something sheepish soon after that. "o-oh… was he working construction when-?"

Despite being intensely interested in what was happening, Duo had to stifle a sudden and enormous yawn—and at that, Hilde seemed to be drawn away from her eye contact with the doctor, and back to him again. She beamed a little, and came and sat by the bed, leaving the Doctor to observe.

"I'm so glad that you're going to be okay." Hilde said softly, and leaned close to take his hand in two of her powder soft ones. "I was worried about you. I love you, you know. So stop scaring me, and get better! I hate seeing you such a wreck."

Watching Hilde fall in and out of clarity, the bed-ridden boy could smell her as he began to doze off. She smelled faintly sweet, as if she'd been powdering herself with cookie mix before the nurse had called her into the room. It was nice, though a little disconcerting. And yet…

Something about the girl's presence, something simply about her body being so near to his own had a thoroughly placating effect on Duo. He knew without any shadow of a doubt, that she was a trusted friend. Bodies didn't lie. But as he looked down at her lilly white hands, he could see engine grease beneath her fingernails, and for some reason it made him think that the cookie smell and the sun dress were all a farce.

" Miss Schbeiker?" The Doctor again, merely a shadow against the otherwise pristine wall. "May I have a word with you out in the hall, please?"

Through the haze, Duo watched Hilde look up. And then she was gone, though the cookie smell lingered for a minute or two behind her.

* * *

"_Heero– hey, hey HEERO!" Duo jogged down the hall with his helmet underneath his arm to catch up to his glaring friend. "Man, wait up!" _

_The shuttle had very few windows, but a line of smallish square flats served that purpose, cut into the wall at scattered intervals. Heero paused at the very last window by the exit hatch, and with stiff shoulders, stopped his flight to his room to stare resignedly out into the darkness of space. He waited there. _

"_Jesus, you'd think you were running a marathon." Duo panted, and collapsed against the wall in front of the Japanese boy, dumping his helmet loudly on the floor. "But, I just wanted to talk to you about what happened. You know, just now. I didn't mean to make you mad, you know. I wasn't staring at you." _

"_Yes you were." Heero stated, sounding deadpan as he stared blankly along Duo's slouching figure._

"_No I wasn't!" _

"_Don't lie to me. You do it all the time."_

"_No way. Prove it." _

"_You've been doing it for a year. And three months. And..." Heero paused, calculating. "Fourteen days." _

_There was a silence, and Duo's half-smile slid slowly out of his expression. He stared back, breathing through slightly parted lips, and began to take on a look of guilt and embarrassment._

"_Jesus Christ. How can you tell?"_

_Heero's eyes lingered on Duo for a few moments, taking in the wide eyes, the red cheeks... he took in the lushness which always seemed to cling to the American in the plump curves of his face and in the pink of his lips. "Because I was watching you first."_

_The change over his comrade was almost instantaneous. A funny look came into Duo's eyes... almost a frown, but with a touch of questioning. Heero blinked sedately, and remained very still. What was that look? That inquiring softness. It had a gentle feeling, and Heero resisted the powerful impulse to take a step back. _

_Duo took a step forward. _

"_Man, Heero... I never guessed. You're good!" The boy half smiled, and absently scratched the back of his head. "What did you see? When you were watching me, I mean." _

_That soft tone again... Heero stood up a little straighter and folded his arms stiffly across his chest, pulling the flesh there tight and hard as he tried to quell the strange churning in his stomach. "I saw... a soldier. A brave man. I saw invaluable skills. I saw missions completed. I saw... Loyalty to a cause." Drawing slightly up and away from Duo's doe eyes, Heero added a stiff ending. "And I saw dandruff." _

"_You did not." Duo chided, giving his friend a cynical grin. _

_Heero frowned. "Yes I did see dandruff." _

"_No, I mean all that other bullshit." The braided boy waved a dismissive hand at Heero, still glowing a little. "All that 'good man' crap. Don't flatter me. And don't embarrass yourself. And I don't have dandruff." _

_Another frown. "But you are a good man. One of the best I know." _

"_I'm a kid." Duo sighed, and with white teeth flashing, he gave the floor a tired grin. " I want to piss my pants each time we get ready for a fight like this one, you know. I can't help it. I'm a kid, and I'll die a kid." _

"_No. You're a man." Heero insisted firmly, temporarily forgetting his fluttering stomach in favor of this slightly out of place comfort session. Duo, for some reason or another, brought that certain maternal spark out in him. Even if his parenting skills were somewhere on the same level as a Sea Turtle's. "You're not so bad." _

_For a moment, Duo couldn't help the cynical look which held him. But as he looked up and saw the sincerity in Heero's face, the soft look slowly began to return, and the American turned very faintly pink around the ears. "You really think so?" _

_Heero leaned in a little to accentuate his point. "Yes." _

_In the quiet that followed, it donned on the Japanese pilot that somehow his comrade had managed to inch an extra foot forwards, and as they stood, Heero could feel the cool caress of Duo's breath against his chin and lips. Looking suddenly unsure, he hesitated a little, growing stiff in the shoulders and folding his hands tighter across his chest. The look was almost vulnerable, and Duo observed all of it with a raw and smouldering eye. _

_The stars wheeled in the heavens, and the vastness of space stretched on and on for an eternity as both pilots stood considering one another. _

_Since early childhood, Duo Maxwell had always possessed a recklessness which to some people had been considered shocking. He relied on gut instinct, which often times landed him in dangerous situations. But it was also that same gut sensation that had saved him from a sudden and gruesome death a hundred times over, and so the boy had never found a sufficient reason to change his ways. He was, and always had been a compulsive soul, and so it was with a great magnitude of lust and tension that the braided boy at last did the one thing he'd always wished to do; he grabbed Heero's head and crushed their lips together. _

_For a few moments, the kiss was a brutal struggle– all fire and snagging teeth and clenching muscles as each fought the other for some nameless dominance they'd long ago plotted out. But the second the kiss gentled, Heero whipped away and was gone from the embrace. _

_Breathing harshly, Heero stared with wide, alarmed eyes at the braided boy. Duo, in turn, stared back with equally wide eyes, though his panic seemed less pronounced and more rooted in guilt. And for the space of five breaths, all that could be heard was the perpetual rumble of the engine beneath their feet, and of the hum of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. _

_And then, with the swiftness that an assassin is bred to live, Heero pulled his gun out from the back of his suit and carried the butt around to smash into Duo's forehead. _

_Duo went flying into the opposite wall, and the neutral tan color was interrupted by a smear of red. _

_When Duo's vision cleared, the hallway was deserted._

_

* * *

_

"And you're sure you have all of the specified requirements in place?"

"Yes." Hilde assured the old man for the thirtieth time, as they walked together. "Yes… I understand perfectly."

The friendly Doctor had dropped any and all pretense of pleasantness in the time that it took him to step out into the hall. It was a degenerative process, which steadily worsened as he accompanied Hilde through a series of corridors--- and was a look which became a full-blown grimace as they entered a locked room, in which four other doctors in pristine lab coats were milling around, glaring.

"Hadley, what's the meaning of this?" One skinny Doctor with pale blonde hair demanded as soon as they entered. "Protocol requires the subject to be isolated and monitored until further results can be ascertained. But you've got the boy with his head wrapped up like a Christmas present sitting in the children's ward! What are you thinking?"

"Now, calm down, Steven. I've already gone through the consultation process. And I intend to continue with the treatment." the old man by the young girl tried to assure his peer. "Have you gentlemen met miss Schbeiker?"

* * *

_Duo sat alone at the miniature table nook in the shuttle's kitchen, looking morose as he pressed a bloody rag to his forehead. The room was cold and blank, though a great deal brighter than the lounge where the boys had been playing chess a half hour ago. There were, however, a great number more of fluorescent lights in the ceiling here than there, and with some amount of annoyance the braided boy ignored the high pitched whine of the bulbs above._

_It was there, sitting and staring moodily into space, that Chang Wufei strode purposefully into the kitchen and saw Duo. _

_The pilots blinked at each other for a moment. _

"_What the hell happened to you?" Chang almost instantly demanded, paused mid step on his path to the refrigeration compartment._

_Leaning back in his chair a little, Duo considered the question and chuckled mirthlessly. _

"_Well?" Wufei demanded again, giving the American boy a strange look. _

_Duo licked his lips, and then pursed them as he paused in accentuation of his answer. "I... kissed Heero Yuy." _

"_No, really." _

_The humor slipped a little from him, and Duo frowned. "No, I actually did." _

_Wufei quirked an eyebrow. "No you didn't. You're making fun of me. What, did you get into an argument over a box of donuts with a crew member, or something?"_

_The irritation was real now as Duo sat up more fully, and pressed the bloody rag tighter over the gash in his head. "No, I really kissed him. And then he hit me with his gun and ran off. Why would I lie about something as degrading as that? I mean, it only makes me look like a fucking dumbass." And then, as an afterthought, "And anyway, I don't lie."_

_Watching Wufei realize that Duo was telling the truth was a harrowing experience; The Chinese boy's expression went slowly from something faintly amused, to something neutral, and then straight on to deeply nauseated. And for a long time, the boy simply stood there, looking at Duo with an eye full of mortification and disgust. _

"_Well," Wufei said at last, looking Duo up and down as the braided boy glared daggers at him. "If you weren't going to hell before, you are now." _

_And with that, the Chinese pilot left, leaving Duo alone again with the buzzing light bulbs and with his thoughts. _

"_Yeah, well..." The American countered weakly, staring at the place where Wufei had been standing a minute ago. "See you there."_

_

* * *

_

Hilde stood to the side, watching all that took place with a grim look of determination set in her petite features. As far as she was concerned, the opinion of any of these government sanctioned medic officials was worth about as much as a dog shit on the sidewalk. If anyone could take care of Duo, it would be her. Hilde Schbeiker, caretaker and supplement girlfriend... Right? (And that did have such a lovely ring to it...) Duo deserved a new start, and if she was the one best suited for the job, then by God, she would stand up to the task. She would stand up for him. She would stand up for his rights, when nobody else would. All new beginnings came with a high price after all, but, perhaps if she could somehow shield her braided friend from discovering his old self again, then he could remain as he was now. Blank and fresh, at peace with God and with himself for the very first time.

Standing in the corner by the old Doctor, the image of the crazy captain Howard briefly danced across Hilde's mind. Would he choose to intervene if he found out about Duo's treatment? Hadn't he been something like a father to Duo once..? But he'd disappeared as quickly as he'd come, dismissed as a ship in the wind– Seen and gone from Duo forever now that the war had ended for good. Wasn't he? No, he was gone forever. They'd all parted ways after that last Christmas Eve two years ago. Hadn't it been like that with the other Gundam Pilots too? Well, most of them anyhow. They'd all fallen out of touch with each other this past year... the old man with the sunglasses included. But that didn't mean that they wouldn't be coming back.

That didn't mean hat HE wouldn't be coming back... The war hero with eyes like iron. Hilde knew Heero had been something of importance to Duo, but his absence from the scene for such a long time led the girl to believe that even if her friend's old war comrade showed up again, it wouldn't be for the sake of romancing. Somehow, Hilde couldn't picture pilot 01 in a flowers and chocolate kind of situation anyway.

No. Nobody would disturb their new peace. Their fresh beginning would be together, and the girl thanked whatever fate which had given them this unexpected turn of events. Perhaps it really had just been by accident. But regardless, this was one gift that Hilde wouldn't relinquish easily. Not to anyone.

Especially not to Heero Yuy.

She wouldn't let him take back Duo's peace of mind. Not again.

* * *

**TBC...**

* * *

**Author's Note**: Hahaha! I laugh at the spell check! I laugh at the entire revising process! Hahahaha, I laughatchu! Ha ha! 

Anyway, review and tell me how bad I stink. ('cause it must be a lot.)


	2. The Welcome Home

**Author's Note**: hahaha! My story is totally and completely The Bourne Identity meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I'm NOT EVEN TRYING to hide it. Not even.

Yessssss. I'm enjoying the sweet ride. Thank you other writers for providing me with material to jack! Well... sort of jack. Well, all fanfiction really is jacking off somebody else...

...err...

Well, you know what I mean.

-Onions

* * *

Title: **Forgive and Forget**

Chapter:** II- The Welcome Home**

Author: Onions Make Me Cry

Rating: pg-13!

Pairing: 1 x 2

* * *

"Home sweet dump!" Hilde proclaimed aloud, and smiled brightly as she slammed the door of her old, beaten blue truck shut with a resounding crash. Duo had climbed out some few seconds earlier, though with slightly more caution, and had managed to shut his door with almost no noise at all. Gathering his hospital bag up, he followed his friend down the drive. 

The scrap yard lay spread to the left of the couple, piled high against a tall wooden fence which was beginning to lean backwards from the stress of bearing so much weight. Broken sheets of glass and hunks of crumpled metal winked and sparkled beneath a pristine blue sky, and a myriad of dark shadows spread out back behind the towering edifices like inky reflections of a deserted city.

Directly to the left of the scrap yard was the house. (Duo felt a dull jolt of familiarity pass through his stomach as he looked on it.) Two stories and a partial basement high, the dirty yellow paint on the wooden siding had sent chips of the butter color down to shower the untidy scrubs and bushes which clumped unevenly along the base of the house. The windows were drafty looking, and a few of them were propped open with odd objects on the second floor, like stacks of books, and even an old globe on the far left. However, there was a pleasant sort of awning above the back door, which doubled as an upstairs balcony, and both up there and down on the ground were host to a series of assorted, mismatched potted plants. Duo even smiled a little at the tomato vines, which were tied up with socks and panty hose, as they bowed with the weight of their heavy fruit over top of a neighboring cactus. As they approached, a variety of small animals dashed from amongst the pots and into the surrounding bushes.

"I'll make us some lunch once we get settled again. How does that sound?" Hilde called casually back over her shoulder as she pushed the back door open and moved gracefully into the kitchen. "I'll have to go to the market for a little bit, but that shouldn't take so long. What do you think about soup and sandwiches?"

Duo trailed in after the girl, and looked around the kitchen. Just like the outside, the inside of the house was dumpy. The walls were chipping like the siding, though the boy could tell the walls were once an eggshell blue. Wooden hanging cabinets had been nailed up wherever enough free space would permit one, giving the room the look of a very large pantry instead of the kitchen it was supposed to be. But where food was sparse, picture frames and nicknacks filled the shelf space instead. Almost museum-like, the items were like a documentation of someone else's life... something personal and sacred, which at the moment made Duo shift from foot to foot in discomfort. Yes, he remembered vaguely having been here once... but it felt more like it had been ages ago, instead of the few days in actuality it really had been. But the doctor had said such a reaction was normal with minor amnesia, and it would wear off in a couple of days when his memory would return to fill in the uncomfortable blanks. And then there was Hilde, so familiar and full of love that it felt wrong to even think of denying her hopes of a hasty recovery. And so Duo took another step into the room. And another.

Soon, walking along the perimeter of the room, Duo had taken up examining the shelves while Hilde bustled around the tiny room to gather supplies for their lunch.

"Lets see, what else?" She hummed to herself, bending into the refrigerator to take mental note of what she needed at the market. "Tomatoes? Oh, no, bless me we've got a ton of those outside... I'll have to go pick some before the rabbits eat them up like last year."

Duo grunted, his eyes skimming over an old muffler pipe, a handful of toy cars, a line of fresh green apples, a block of knives, a box of spices, a tin soldier, a picture frame... pausing, the boy examined the photo. It was of himself and Hilde, both dressed in their Sunday best and sitting on a picnic table. A blue suit and a white tie for him, and a powder blue cocktail dress for her. White pearls. He didn't remember the pearls, but the dress and the suit seemed familiar... something about an estate sale, and an evening party. There had been lights that evening... loose hanging lamps and tiny twinkling Christmas strands wrapped around a wood and wire frame in a garden with a tall hedge. He remembered a table with an ice sculpture shaped like a rearing horse, and the sound of a crowd clinking glasses. But that was all that came. Frowning, Duo looked closer, and noted how the wind had been blowing, and the tiny sliver of thumb interfering with the shot in the far left bottom corner. Who had been taking this picture?

"I'll need to get some ham, I know how you like it. I'll get the honey ham thinly sliced. Or maybe some bacon so we can make some BLT's?" Hilde continued to clink around in the fridge, temporarily oblivious. "We don't have any bread, except these English muffins... egh! They're molding!" The sound of the English muffins hitting the trash can.

Looking next to the picture frame, Duo paused again. For a stretch of about a foot and a half, the shelf was empty. Why waste the space, when everywhere else was cram full? But examining the empty stretch again, the boy noticed a series of fine strips of dust-free wood, suggesting whatever had previously been there had been recently removed. Other picture frames, by the look of the clean spots.

"Duo?"

What pictures could have been here? Something like a burning tingle started up at the pit of Duo's stomach as he stared at the blank length of shelf.

"Duo!"

It was almost as if he knew the answer already, and were simply refusing to tell himself what it was. All in all, it was a very strange reaction, and Duo frowned to himself in consternation.

"Hey, Duo!" Hilde stomped over to her friend and jabbed him in the shoulder.

He glanced up at last, and looked down at the girl with vague recognition. "Huh?"

"Jeez, you were out of it. What's up?" Hilde glanced at the shelf where Duo had been looking, and for a moment grew silent. Watching her, she seemed even to grow a little pale. But the look became indiscernible as she turned back again to Duo with a firm expression of schooled care.

"You need some real rest." The spritely girl decreed, and steering Duo by his shoulders, pushed him out of the kitchen and up the rickety wooden stairs.

* * *

"_You ever had a real Cristmas, Heero?"_

"_No." _

"_Nah, me neither." Duo huffed, grinning a little as he waved a dismissive hand at his friend across the narrow tent they were currently occupying together. A storm was blowing outside, making the walls of the tent bellow and churn. "Not that we ever needed one or anything, but it would have been nice as a kid, dig it? It's this snow, makes me think about it."_

"_Mm." Heero grunted a vague reply, and wrapped his blanket tighter around his shoulders. His eyes were closed as he leaned instinctively, even inside the tent, against the direction of the wind. Silence took them for a little while, and all the boys could hear was the screaming of the storm outside. _

"_You cold?"_

_Heero flinched at Duo's jarring voice, and seemed annoyed even before he opened his eyes. "No."_

"_Well, shit, I am." The braided boy gave Heero a look like he were crazy. "Cooped up here on this fucking godforsaken planet in the middle of a fucking blizzard like chickens in a box waiting to see if we can dig our way out in the morning with the obviously useless supplies we have... I mean, I think you're great and all, man, but I don't want to freeze to death tonight out here all alone. Why didn't Quatre give us a heads up about the weather in this sector before we leapt into this god damn mission? I would have brought my footies."_

_Heero quirked an eyebrow. "You have footies?" _

"_Well, never mind. Yeah, yeah, okay, I do." Again the dismissive gesture, though this time Duo turned a little pink around the ears. "But I'd be way happier wearing them and being warm and having you laugh at me than be freezing my ass off like now with you laughing at me."_

"_Quatre did warn us about the weather. And I warned you. It's your own fault that you didnt adequately prepare yourself." _

"_That's not true! Hey, don't be such an asshole! Have some empathy! Have some compassion! I can't feel my toes!"_

"_Come here."_

_For a moment, Duo looked alarmed, and drew up a little in his blanket. Suspicion laced his expression as he stared across their distance. "What for?"_

_Heero glared. "Fine. Stay there." _

"_Okay, okay, jeez..." The American submitted, and still wrapped in his blanket, clambered as carefully as he could manage across their distance and sat by his companion. "What now? What, you got some weed? Wanna smoke up?" _

_Rolling his eyes, Heero opened up his blanket and pulled a corner over Duo's shoulder, tucking the edges in tight. _

"_There. Now shut up so I can go to sleep."_

_  
Duo did._

_

* * *

_

Evening was setting when Duo slowly began to come around again. He woke in his room, and for long minutes simply stared out across the wooden floor at the long strip of orange light which blazed inside from his curtainless, open window. It was a lovely sight, though a little surreal. Somehow, waking up and still being unsure of who he was and what he was supposed to be doing was almost a confirmation that he hadn't woken up at all. That he was still dreaming a dream from which he might never wake up. But the chill of October had leeched the heat out of the air, and after lying idle for a few more moments, Duo was forced to get up and plod across the room to shut the window. He hated the cold. That, he knew.

An untouched sandwich sat on the side table by the bed, and spotting it, Duo briefly felt a flash of guilt. Hilde. He'd slept through lunch, even though she'd made him food. But the guilt faded, and for the first time, Duo actually began to take stock of his surroundings. He'd been surprised at how tired he'd actually been when Hilde had initially shoved him into bed in the first place, and so he hadn't given his room the time to inspect it. But now that he was a little more rested, he realized, and not without a slight pang of alarm, that out of all the rooms he'd seen so far, this one was the most unfamiliar.

For one thing, and feeling a little strange thinking it, the bed was too big. Glancing over at it, his eyes slid over the delicate ironwork of the bedframe. But the quilt was familiar... slightly musty. Patched. Faded. Known. Loved. But that was it. The bed was too big. The frame was too fancy. Hell, the floor was too clean. Frowning, Duo wondered why it was that he thought dirty would be better, but his desire to hurl the clothes in the laundry basket out across the swept wooden floor was steadily growing more and more powerful.

The closet door should be open. Answering the impulse, Duo walked across the room and opened it. But he stood still at the entrance, one hand still resting on the knob. There, neatly hung on wooden hangers, were the blue suit and the cocktail dress from the photo downstairs. In fact, the entire closet was full of such fancy garments. Both Duo and Hilde's clothes were arranged with care according to season and need. The only messy aspect of the closet were Hilde's shoes, mostly sneakers, though with the occasional pair of high heels. They lay in scattered piles beneath the clothes, no boxes or even stacks to define them from one another, spread across the closet floor. Not for the first time, Duo allowed a feeling of falseness to wash over him as he looked at the neatly arranged clothes. Farce. They were a farce. Somehow.

The rest of the room was just as alienating. Strange blank spots on the wall. Objects missing. Duo specifically remembered a card table had once been in the middle of the floor. He'd gone for a month with no chair, simply pulling the table up to the edge of the bed instead while he was... what had be been doing? Some activity at the table... something using his hands.

It didn't matter now. But Duo still looked down at his palms, vaguely hoping that some groove, some scar, would give hint to one of his many mysteries. They didn't.

By the time the light had faded from orange to purple, to the blue-black of night, Duo had made his way down to the kitchen again, where Hilde was cooking dinner.

As he crossed the threshold into the heated room, his companion glanced over her shoulder and gave a start. "Oh! Duo! Here..." Stopping slicing rolls, Hilde turned and scampered across the kitchen floor to take up Duo's hands. "There you are! Did you sleep well? I have a surprise for you..."

Duo raised his eyebrows, allowing himself to be pulled along by his friend. "A surprise? What kinda surprise?"

"Just, come here..." She lead him across the room. "Close your eyes!"

Duo did. The back door opened, and he felt the chill of the night air, and the crunch of loose dirt underneath his feet.

"Stay here. Don't open your eyes! Keep them closed!" Hilde demanded, and left Duo standing in the middle of the yard. He could hear her scrambling around, and then, there were the strong, wafting melodies of a familiar big band record playing in the background.

"Okay, now!"

The American opened his eyes.

The empty lot leading up to the scrap yard had been decorated with tiny sparkling Christmas lights. Even the cactus by the back door had been wrapped in the twinkling decorations, and fed the line up along the ledge of the balcony and down the other side again.

And there, sitting directly in the middle of the cleared space, was Duo's missing card table, with a frosted birthday cake sitting happily in the center on a pink doily.

"Happy birthday, Duo." Hilde said, and a softness was in her voice. He looked over at her, and for the first time took stock of her. She was wearing a pretty floral skirt, and a thin white blouse which flattered a triangular patch of chest on which a silver locket rested. But more importantly, she had a touch of womanly radiance about her. She smiled, and Duo couldn't help grin a little stupidly back.

"Wow... this is..."

"Not too bad for a little girl like me, huh?" Hilde laughed.

And for the first time since waking up in the hospital bed three days prior, Duo felt a glimmering of happiness.

"Yeah," Duo agreed, closing their distance, and laying hands on her shoulders. "Not so bad."

Turning a delicate shade of pink, Hilde smiled sheepishly and scuffed a toe in the dirt. "Aw shit, Duo, I got Paul next door to do the lights. I just made the cake."

"No, I like it! I like it all! It's all 'real pretty." Duo assured her, squeezing her shoulders. "Really, Hilde. This is great. Thanks."

She smiled again, this time a kind of fluttering smile reminiscent of a little girl in love, and Duo took her up in his arms and danced with her. It felt like the right thing to do.

But as they danced, Duo holding Hilde's powder-soft hand in his own beneath his chin, he couldn't help but feel a vague sense of longing for some missing component. Some reality still yet to be uncovered again. But what was it? It felt like... almost like, someone was watching him. Someone knew he was doing something wrong. Hell, like he knew he was doing something wrong and was trying to incriminate himself. But why should he think such a thing? Now wasn't the time. Not when Hilde was so sweet smelling in his arms, and he had a hand again on something which felt right.

Dancing, and wishing with everything in him to leave those thoughts behind for now, Duo sighed and pulled Hilde closer.

It was only after the dancing had ended, the cake had been eaten, and one by one the lights in the windows had all winked out, that the figure who had been lingering just beyond the bowing wooden fence turned again to walk down the street.

* * *

TBC

* * *

**Author's Note**: AAAAH! Who is this mysterious figure? okay, it probably isnt that hard to figure out. Come on. But anyway, sorry to everybody who feels repulsed at the Hilde x Duo action, but.. hmm, you can deal with it, because it will service a much grander reunifcation later down the road! ah-haha! And one which will tickle the borders of that outlawed nc-17 rating! well, hopefully. If I can write something like that without just breaking down and giggling so bad i have to cut the whole damn section out. Anyway, Heero enter next chapter, so keep the faith.  



	3. The Second Try

**Author's Note**: Okay, so, I've decided. I'll know what's about to happen when I write it. And also to anybody who is gonna get nit-picky about what specific pairing arrangement this story should be rated, you can go die. Because not even I know where this is going! So just grab hold of your own ass shut up and sit tight while I figure it out.

haha, wow, I feel sort of liberated.

And ps, thank you to those who've been offering legitimate and valuable critiques. I want you to tell me that I suck, but let me know why and where so I can fix it! Yessss

Anyway, welcome plot progression! pattering of polite applause

-Onions.

* * *

Title: **Forgive and Forget**

Chapter: **III- The Second Try**

Author: Onions Make Me Cry

Pairing: Heero x Duo x (gasp) Hilde x someone? (What is going on?)

Rating: a spicy pg-13

* * *

_ Duo woke with a jolt, and working on instinct alone, drew a hand beneath his pillow to touch the icy burn of his gun as the sound of his cabin hatch being thrown open screamed through the darkness. Squinting, the boy pushed himself up on his arm and watched a shadowy figure take a few slow steps into his room. The hall outside was much brighter than this private single quarters had ever been– his light bulb had burnt out the day he'd boarded Howard's cruiser, and the boy had never really brought himself to get another one. Though the war was over, and for now there was no more threat to himself or those he loved, Duo still preferred the dark, and the feel of a stiff metal bunk and the tearing springs of a tattered mattress. They were too much like home to abandon right away, though he still harbored secret dreams of going into business with Hilde down on earth again now that he had the time for it._

"_Who's there?" Duo spat, sounding raw as the first words after many hours of sleep ripped from his ill-used throat. _

_At first, there was no response. Though the figure did seem to bow a little under some nameless thought... it's shoulders stooped and moved from side to side, suggesting nervous feet as the silhouetted shape guessed at a male wearing some sort of hood._

_Duo sat up fully, his powerful arm extended and steady. He cocked his gun. _

"_... I've always been watching you, you know."_

_For a brief moment, Duo's hand faltered, and his arm drooped slightly. _

_The figure gave a little sigh, and elbows jutted out against the blinding white backdrop in the hall as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I... I was never mad that you stared at me."_

_Staring into the darkness, Duo felt the incredulous name slip through his lips._

"_Heero?" _

_Another sigh, this one like the puff of wind which disturbs still leaves on a stationary branch, making them tremble and slide against one another. "I never had a real name either. We're the same, in that way. I thought for a long time about what I would name myself if I had the choice, but just ended up deciding anything other than'Heero' would sound strange. Strange to me. Strange to hear coming out of your mouth. I thought maybe you could think of one for me." _

_Sitting in his cot with his hand still barely clutching his gun, Duo remained still for the next moment or so out of simple flabbergastion. Breathing in the darkness, he could hear Heero's nervous feet shifting on the cold iron floor. _

_The question came before Duo had even registered thinking of it. "Are you alright?" _

"_No." _

_And there it was. That trace of the old Heero Yuy Duo had always known, all in a single word. Something vaguely stubborn, and even a little irritated lingered in it, and it was there that the American boy knew it was really the Heero he'd grown to love that had made this unexpected return. To the full extent of his knowledge, not even Relena knew where Heero had gone after that last Christmas eve, not even a week past. So what was he doing here? _

_Feeling blood tingling in his fingers again, Duo at last laid down his gun, and swung his legs over the ledge of the bed and hopped to the ground. He landed steadily and solidly, and even at the base of his bunk, felt Heero draw back a little to make room. Passing him, The American tried to peer into the face of his friend, but only met darkness. Turning to his desk, he flicked on his only light, a tiny desk lamp beneath which he'd spent the past three days pouring over old records and files, now uselessly scattered over the table and spilling onto the floor. _

_A weak, watery orange light spilled out from that tiny corner, and as Duo turned, he realized with some disappointment, that he could still only vaguely see Heero's face. But a little was better than none, after all, and taking his Japanese friend in was his first point of task. _

_Stooping uncharacteristically, Heero looked much worse for wear than Duo decided he'd care to see. He was dressed in an old oil-stained t-shirt and a pair of brown jeans, decked with a navy blue jacket that had obviously had the hood sewn in by hand. He'd drawn the hood up, and it crushed the burnt auburn mess of his unkempt tangles down flat against his skull, all except for his bangs, which stuck wildly out and up from beneath the cloth as if it were trying to flee Heero's head entirely all together. _

_Duo frowned, thinking for the first time that even he himself, in only the gloriousness of a pair of tighty-whities and an engine-greased beater, looked in vastly better condition than the normally immaculate Heero Yuy. _

"_What- what's wrong? What happened?" Duo sputtered, a hand on the frame of his bunk to steady himself as he stared at Heero with wide eyes. Even in the dim light, traces of purple and yellow still touched the far left side of his forehead, and two crude, self sewn stitches pulled painful loops in the stiff flesh there. _

_Heero's eyes lingered on Duo's head for a minute, sizing up his companion in the same stride. But a vague expression of guilt seemed to dog the Japanese youth, and for long moments, the two boys simply stared at each other in an awkward silence._

"_How's your head?" Heero asked at last, his eyebrows coming together in the middle. _

_Blinking, it took a moment for Duo to realize what the other boy was talking about. But with a slight double-take, his fingers finally went to his forehead, and he gave a carefully indifferent shrug. "You clocked me pretty hard, but I ain't gonna die or nothin'. I've had worse than you." _

"_I suppose you have." A contemplative look._

_Silence again. _

"_So..." Duo ventured speculatively, breaking the quiet again. "Am I gonna have to stand around here in my undies all night waiting for you to tell me what you're doing here? Or, you think I should get a chair?"_

"_I thought I could try again." The other boy all but blurted, and Heero's jaw tightened five times tighter in the resulting silence. A silence which was put to use glaring nervously at the floor. _

_The braided boy quirked an eyebrow, and put a fist to his hip as he leaned against the bedframe. "Try what again, exactly?" the bitter twinge of the trademark Maxwell sarcasm. "You bashing me in the head with the blunt end of a weapon? Because, you know, I have a whole face you could just... dance all over. I could even just get down on the ground, and you could stomp on me– You chat up your mugging victims often?"_

"_No." _

"_Yeah, so I guess that makes me special then, huh?" Duo drawled, feeding into the beast now that he'd begun. "Well hot dog, aren't you a Casanova?"_

"_You caught me off guard."_

_Duo snorted, and leaned back a little into the bedframe, pulling the fabric of his beater tight across his chest. "A mistake I've learned not to repeat." _

_Still staring at the floor, Heero's teeth ground down on the delicate flesh of his lower lip. But when he looked up again, he suddenly had a look about him of determined resolve. "I want to try again." he repeated, this time more firmly. _

"_Jesus Christ!" The American bellowed, "Who are you? Where's Heero? I can't remember you ever saying this much to me in the entire history of our friendship!" the boy threw his arms up in aggravation. "What do you want, man? You wake me up at the ass-crack of dawn, what is it? You want an apology? What?" _

_Heero's look of calm resolve flickered, and a bitter glare surfaced in his place. "Don't you ever stop talking? I want you!" _

_And the world was changed. _

_In the moment it took for a stupefied Duo to be overcome, Heero had spun to slam the door shut and turned back again to pull the braided boy hard against him, crushing their mouths together for a second explosive time. They stumbled together, and with keen precision Heero smashed Duo's back up against the icy cold metal door and was at his throat, tangling rough fingers into the loose weave of the American's braid. Duo gasped as Heero's knee slid between his legs and rocked upwards, causing the pinned boy to automatically wrap his naked arms around Heero's shoulders to cling somewhere between space and heaven. _

_Ripping with rough fingers, Duo peeled the hood away from Heero's head, and resorted to clawing through the soft tangles as they tickled at his jaw, teasing just above the liquid hotness where Heero's mouth was sucking at his neck. Already the American could feel his knees turning to jelly, and couldn't contain the ragged breathy moan which tore from his chest as Heero ripped one shoulder away to make room for cold fingers he sent plunging down the front of Duo's tighty-whities. _

"_Heero!" The American groaned, half plea, half demand, and it was seconds before he felt himself whipped around and dumped on the half-sized desk beside the bunk. Heero came down over him, obscuring the light, but his hand slipped a little on the files which still littered the table, and he paused, looking flushed and irate. And then, working on that second thought, pulled Duo up by the waist and sent a mighty hand sprawling out across the table to clear it. _

_Duo only vaguely registered the sound of his lamp shattering as it hit the floor some few feet away. But it was only after the hot flesh of Heero's chest had begun digging into his back some time later, and the fervor and excitement of his passion was reaching it's peak, that the American realized that his very last source of light had been destroyed forever._

_

* * *

_

"He Dreams like that all the time." Hilde whispered quietly to the doctor, who stood stiff-faced with a medic's bag thrown over his shoulder at the threshold of the living room.

Duo was napping on the couch against the far wall, a series of picture frames glittering in a carefully composed triangle above him. One leg was splayed some distance off the couch and onto the floor, and his right arm was tossed up over his head. He was twitching, and even murmured to himself as he rolled his head fecklessly from side to side.

Hilde frowned dispiritedly. "He's like that at night too, sometimes."

But the doctor merely shook his head, and gestured for Hilde to follow him out. They walked together in silence through the hall, and then down the stairs, until turning on his heel, the man stopped at the kitchen door. Looking to the pixie girl for a second time, the kitchen threw light on his slightly pinched face and he frowned.

"His reaction to the treatment is poorer than we expected. He isnt taking the suggestion therapy from you, then?"

Looking mildly sick, Hilde shook her head. "No. I think he knows I rearranged some of the rooms, too. I've seen him staring at places where I've taken things down."

"I see." The rat-faced doctor scowled a little, and the girl shifted uncomfortably. "Well then. Perhaps we'll have to take him in for another session. You'll have to give him a very particular prescription twice a day for the two weeks leading up until the treatment. I don't have any as of right now, but I can have a bottle to you within the next day or so."

"What pills?" Hilde inquired, still with a look of concern.

"Oh, they're mostly a distraction." The doctor waved the girl's fear away. "They worsen his physical condition in tiny increments, until one of our physicians will falsely diagnose him with an ailment which requires an operation. That way, we can put him under without any fuss."

Staring at the doctor, Hilde couldn't help the feeling of revulsion which swept her. It must have shown on her face, because, removing his tiny spectacles, the Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose in silence for a few moments, appearing to calm himself.

"Miss Schbeiker, Mr. Maxwell very specifically requested this procedure. He went through many levels of diagnostic tests and payed a substantial amount of money to have it go through at all. The least you could do is respect his wishes. It is plain to see, Mr. Maxwell was a very unhappy person. Suicidal, even. And that's really no surprise, considering his work and social history. The war had a profound effect on us all. Mr. Maxwell particularly. I assume you have a copy of his file?"

Hilde nodded, looking down at the tips of her shoes. "I haven't read it. I keep it in the safe with the Junk loans. I feel like I'd be invading his privacy."

The Doctor gave her a firm look. "Now Miss Schbeiker, you must remember the confidentiality of these documents! Think of the catastrophic results if Mr. Maxwell were to re-discover his original identity? I have very little doubt in my mind that divulging such information to him for a second time would end in suicidal results. Mr. Maxwell wanted us to ensure him that finding himself again was precisely what he would never be allowed to do."

Still nodding, the skinny girl seemed to deflate a little, and at last agreed. "But this treatment... this next dose, will it clean all that stuff out? All the stuff you missed the first time?" And then, turning a little pink in the face, "He won't forget _everything _about this week, will he? About... about me?"

"Be assured that we'll be in contact with you in the future about the specifics of the secondary treatment." The doctor glossed over the subject gracefully. "Don't be afraid, Miss Schbeiker. Mr. Maxwell's welfare is our top priority! You don't think that the unified earth-sphere nation would allow war heros like Duo Maxwell to go on uncharted and uncared for?"

Again, Hilde jiggled her head in something like a 'no', and the rat-faced Doctor gave a benign smile.

"Well then." He said, and replaced his tiny spectacles on the bridge of his nose. "Until next time."

They shook hands, and the Doctor left.

Standing in the open door, Hilde let in the chilly October air as she watched the man walk across the lot, and disappear behind the leaning fence.

"Well Duo," she sighed, and leaned against the doorframe. "I guess it really is just you and me now."

* * *

TBC

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks again again to the nice people who reviewed so far! In terms of how long I think this thing is going to be, huurrmmm... i dunno, maybe five or six parts? I havent decided. Not HUGE, but not tiny either. Does that answer anything? (no?) Anyway, y'all think I should pull in any other gundam characters besides the basics? who? and how? hell, I'm really open to all kinds of suggestions, so lay it on me. 

thanks guys! keep reading


	4. How To Tell A Lie

**Author's Note**: Okay, really Heero in this chapter, instead of imaginary sex-memories Heero. Wow, and, you know, he's actually kind of creeping me out. oo

**and on a Special Note**: Oh my jesus god, fan Hostilecrayon has left me the LONGEST and most AWESOME comment I have ever had the pleasure of receiving. Oh ma gawd, can I kiss you slash marry or bear your children? Thank you for putting soooo much effort and thought into what you write! I think I'll write a chapter for you after this one. XD XD XD

**

* * *

**

**Title**: How to Tell a Lie

**Author**: Onions Make Me Cry

**Rating**: pg 13 for some swearing

**Pairing**: untimately 1x2x1 with some 2 x H

* * *

Crows gathered and perched along the tilting wooden fence surrounding the junk yard on the day of Hilde's open lot sale. She watched them from her folding chair behind Duo's card table in the yard, and sipped her lemonade with a vague expression of annoyance. Though they weren't doing any harm, they cackled and hopped into one another noisily enough to distract Duo from his current task; arranging a bag of engine bearings by size and manufacturer. 

"What'd you think they're all doing here?" The braided boy jerked his head at the birds from against the lean-to column holding up the porch. The plastic box he was sorting into rested comfortably in his lap, settling with a pleasant weight over top of his loosely folded ankles, while he flipped each metallic ring into it's proper place.

Hilde shook her head and looked off into the scrap lot, where a good selection of customers were milling around and investigating potential purchases. Though she didn't say it, they reminded her of an older time... and because of it they made her glare a little.

"Dunno. Migrating, I guess."

"They're actually... kind of pretty." Duo's optimistic tone broke against the girl's dour expression, and she shot him a sarcastic look.

The American frowned, then shrugged. "Okay, well, maybe they aren't. But, ya know, a little white lie never hurt anybody." idly, he tossed a bearing into the pile, and it landed with a heavy clank.

"No no no. No way. That's no way to fib." Hilde insisted, sitting up a little more fully, and straightening the silver cash box on the card table. "You've got to know how to tell a lie before you make one. Or else, everybody is just gonna see through it."

"Well then, miss smarter-ass-than-thou, teach me how to tell a lie."

"What you've really got to do is make your story as believable as you possibly can." The girl explained. "You've got to make it so close to the truth that the lie is undetectable. It's a common rule."

Duo shook his head snobbishly, obviously imitating the girl's know-it-all tone. But he seemed content with her explanation, and returned to categorizing in the afternoon breeze.

It was a beautiful day for sitting outside. Unusually warm for Autumn, most of the customers that shifted in and out amongst the towering piles of the junk yard were dressed in light jackets and simple t-shirts. Though they were mostly other mechanics, an obvious smattering of sculptors and artists also traversed the grubby pathways, laughing and smiling amongst each other and holding up choice bits of scrap metal to examine more closely. All of the people, however, were giving the chattering crows a wide and cautious girth.

Back in the hollow of the kitchen, the buzzing chime of the phone rung out in the afternoon calm.

"Oh!" Hilde exclaimed, and stumbled up from her chair, taking the cash box under her arm like a purse, and retreating into the house to answer the call. "Watch the lot for a minute, will you, Duo?"

"Hmm." The boy grunted an answer, still fiddling with the bearings he was sorting.

In the distance, a bicycle bell rung out as a child rode past, and two of the lot dogs snarled at each other as they play-fought a couple of yards away. People talked, their voices blending together into an unintelligible droning, and Duo thought how all of the normal noises of his outside neighborhood were comfortably calming.

Or, what would have been calming, if not for one final distracting component... For the last remaining sound– The crows. The fucking things screamed from the fence, like dying souls flapping uselessly along a one way descent to hell.

"-forty-five for the whole job, and twenty for part time and a weekend session the seventh of the month." Hilde's pixie tones wafted out from the kitchen. She was talking business, and probably would be for some time. She always got to talking a lot when it concerned anything having to do with her business. The lot was her life. Well, he was too. Duo and the lot were her life.

Grabbing up the broom from against the porch, Duo dumped the box of bearings loudly on the ground and stomped into the scrap yard. The screaming had to be stopped before the Crows scared away any more potential customers, and if Hilde didn't care enough to do it herself, it would have to be up to the American to finish the job.

Duo wound between the towering shadows, a woven quilt of sun and shadow falling over his face, and over his worn out white t-shirt as he passed through. Though he had to squint a little against the shimmering flats of metal which reflected the sun, he soon found a shadier path towards the far fence, and quicker than he thought, came into the crescent-shaped clearing just narrow enough for a few people to stand by, and which was immediately below the line of squawking crows.

He hammered at them with the broom, and they screamed bloody murder.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where to find an ignition gauge?"

The American stopped hacking at the birds, and they settled again along the fence as he turned to see a boy standing by a hunk of crumpled siding. Even in the shadows, he seemed like a dark extension of the tower he was beneath. Wearing a beaten navy blue jacket with the hood pulled up, cool azure eyes peered calmly out from beneath a puff of sharp jutting brown bangs. He'd buried his hands deep in his pockets, and stooped a little in on himself, peering up with a clean, pale face out of his own circle of darkness.

For a minute Duo faltered, something nameless having taken hold of his tongue that kept him from uttering the vague and misplaced 'oh!' of being caught by total and utter surprise. But words did return to him, fortunately enough, though it was with a very slightly mystifying sense of deja vu.

"An ignition gauge? Me?" He looked down at himself, and made a jerky shrug when he remembered he was wearing a pair of mechanic's pants. "Oh, man, I'm sorry, I just live here. My girlfriend is really the one you should ask. Hilde, up at the house? I really don't know jack shit about putting stuff together, but she could tell you how to build a colony out of a blow dryer and a wad of crunched up tin cans."

"Ah..." the boy murmured, eyes flickering down as he acknowledged his mistake, though, he did seem a little more unhappy than was strictly necessary for someone just denied such a simple tool. But then again, he was a complete stranger after all. He could have been completely spoiled. Or, maybe he'd visited many other shops which had also yielded barren results. Standing there, Duo felt the curves of his lips pulling down into a frown as he watched the Japanese boy's own expression of disappointment, and for long moments the American struggled to find a helpful suggestion to offer. But it was the boy to break the silence again, now with a look so forcefully neutral that it lifted one of Duo's eyebrows.

"So," the stranger murmured conversationally. "...your girlfriend can help me?"

"Yeah, Hilde, up at the house. Skinny girl with the cash box. She'll know."

Standing up a little straighter, the boy suddenly pulled a slender hand from his pocket, and held a fist out to Duo. When he stretched his fingers open, an unusually shiny hunk of smooth metal laid in his palm like the shimmering center of a pale flower.

"Do you think she could make me one out of this?"

The American peered with interest into the boy's hand, clocking his head to the side as the bit of strange metal caught the light and bounced it back into the air. "Depends. She only works with a couple of metals. What's this?"

"Gundanium."

_Gundanium_.

_Gundanium_.

A silence settled between them as Duo felt the strange twisting sensation in his stomach which was slowly becoming a familiar part of his life. It happened when he was trying to remember something he knew he never would be able to.

"I... don't think she works with this."

_No. Because I do. _

Duo's frown deepened at that strange and unexpected thought. It was odd enough to distract him from the sharp uprise in the scrambling chatter of the crows, who screamed from behind them as a truck rattled by, and for long moments, he simply stared into the palm of his customer's hand.

"Well then." The dark boy suddenly closed his fingers around the shimmering stone, and Duo looked up again. "Thanks for your time."

He turned to leave.

"Wait!" Duo lurched out of his daze, and waved a hand after the retreating figure. "Are you sure there isn't anything we can't help you with?"

Pausing a little deeper into the shadowy path, the boy stood still and contemplated the question. But when he turned, he put a hand out for the broom instead, and feeling slightly stupefied, Duo handed it to him. Raising the handle side high up in the air, he brought it crashing down on a flat plate of metal, and the resounding clamor sent Duo's troublesome crows shooting into the air. For an angry minute, they circled, squabbling angrily, before wheeling as a flock and heading into the distance.

* * *

"_I'm gonna marry you someday." _

_Soft, quiet voices under the gentle cover of night. _

"_I don't think I'm the marrying type." _

"_No... you are." a muffled chuckle, and the rustle of warm blankets being pulled up. _

"_Hmm?"_

"_You are. You just don't know it yet."_

"_I don't?"_

"_Well, you ain't ever had nobody like me, so I guess it's okay for you to be a little unsure of yourself, Heechan." _

"_I hate that name." _

"_Heechan? Heechan Heechan."_

"_Shut it."_

"_Only 'cause you say so, Heechan."_

_The humming sound of night... crickets, cars in the distance, soft breathing. _

"_I've never met anybody quite like you, Duo." _

"_Yeah well, you better tuck that love in tight, because I ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon. You're mine, dig it?" _

"_How long is that supposed to last? Until we die, or until I kill you?"_

"_Now and forever, Heechan. Now and forever."_

_

* * *

_

Evening was coming on when Duo woke from his afternoon nap, slung in the hammock mounted from the back porch. The autumn air blew a little chillier now, and he was thankful for the grubby quilt he'd thought to bring along with him. Letting out a long sigh, the boy fingered the fraying edges of the blanket and stared out into the distance. The sliver of fiery orange burned brightly against the blackening horizon of metropolitan city life, and the distant skyscrapers stretched pointed charcoal claws up and up into the uni-tone glow. All around Duo, the sounds of city night were coming on... cars rumbling on the distant highway, birds singing their last daytime melodies before folding into themselves for another night's sleep. People coming home.

"You awake?"

Hilde poked her head out the back door with a half-smile, and Duo grinned back at her. "Yeah... I am. I was just lookin' at the sky, is all. It's pretty."

The girl slipped outside on careful feet, and carefully set down a bowl of soup she'd been toting on a little glass table by the door. It steamed pleasantly in the cool air, though she didn't immediately offer it to her friend. Instead, she inched over to the edge of the hammock, and then flopped into it. When the resulting tumult of flailing and yelling subsided and Hilde had found a comfortable spot wedged underneath Duo's arm, they sat together for a while and enjoyed the scene together.

"Mmm. It is pretty."

"Yeah." Duo sighed contentedly.

"Today was a good day, huh? We made a lot of money off the open lot, so I think we should do it again next weekend."

"Good idea. Maybe we'll make some regulars." Idly, the thought of the strange boy in the blue jacket came to mind, and the American's eyes went distant as he settled his cheek on the top of Hilde's head. "I met a lot of new people today."

The girl played with Duo's free hand, stringing and unstringing their fingers. "Oh yeah? Did you make any new friends?"

"Sure. A welder. A mechanic for over at that shop that does Ducati. A lot of people." And then, almost as an afterthought, "Some boy came around asking for some stuff to be custom made, but all he had was a hunk of some weird metal I'd never heard of before. I told him to talk to you, but I guess he jetted instead, huh?"

Beneath his arm, Hilde grew still as she listened.

"Dunno if he was just making stuff up or not... what was it, Gumdanium that he had? Was that it? Ehh... I can't remember. I don't know shit about any of that stuff."

As Duo continued to stare off across the far away horizon, his limbs loose and warm as he slung a casual arm over the girl's shoulder, Hilde sat in a sudden and paralyzing fear.

_Gundanium_.

Never in her life had she expected to hear that word ever again.

"You hungry?" The pixie girl prompted suddenly, and Duo glanced over at her with the vague mystification of one who had just been deep in thought.

"Huh? Oh, sure. Yeah."

The soup was still warm against her hands when Hilde went to pick it up off the side table again. French onion soup, homemade. Looking down into the food, she took the spoon to stir it, and in doing so knocked the last of the secretly prescribed white powder off the edges of the bowl, before turning and at last passing it to her ignorant, and expectant friend.

"Made it myself! So you better eat all of it." Hilde gave the biggest smile she could muster, before slowly backing away to lean against the door. Once there, she eyed the braided boy with a vague nervousness.

Duo lifted the spoon to his lips, and mouthful by mouthful, downed the whole thing. When he was done, he passed the bowl back, and tossed the spoon after it, where it clattered loudly in the glass bowl's bottom. "Delicious! Aren't you gonna have some too?"

"Oh, no. I'm not hungry."

Duo nodded, unconcerned, before turning his face out to the sky again. The orange had grown richer, and a deep gold had lain itself along the ground of the back yard, tinting the dying crabgrass and making it look like a rare and precious metal, instead of the weed which it was. The American smiled a little to himself, and basked in the gold.

Hilde frowned, and the night came on.

* * *

tbc

* * *

Author's note: Dunno if that was clear or not, but Hilde's slippin' Duo the sick pills so they can doctor him up again to erase more of his memories. a SECOND clarifier that must be noted, as I read through the chapters and totally FAILED to mention, only reeeeallllly vaguely suggest, is that Duo only wanted specific memories (ie fighting in the war, gundam pilots, and Heero) erased. Instead, they totally wiped him clean, and his brain can't adjust. Come on, just go with it. Just... expand your mind. 

xx;;; to be continued sometime...


	5. The Sleeping Storm

**Author's Note**: zomg, crack crack crack, I need a break. -.-;;;; I wrote this whole damn thing in one sitting. So, if there are errors, and sentence structure issues... well... then... shut up. ( . ) No! No no no, actually, please tell me. I just felt bad because I don't update often, and wanted to get something out there for the people who actually care, and really read this shit. (Are there actually any of you out there? Really? I need support! bursts into tears)

man, it's very late at night. oo

thanks for giving me a read... I guess?

-Onions

* * *

**Title:** How to Tell a Lie

**Chapter**: The Sleeping Storm

Author: Onions Make Me Cry

**Rating:** pretty much PG (sorry!)

**Pairing:** ultimately 1x2x1 with some 2 x H

* * *

The first snow came softly and in the morning. Duo watched it through the kitchen window, from his seat at the rickety wooden island in the middle of the cluttered room, shivering a little. He hated the cold.

And yet, even so... something about the gentle, cottony clumps made the boy squirm in his seat. Still too disoriented to bother with traveling into the rest of the city, Duo had kept close to home, and to the traces of familiarity he could still hold on to. The lot, the house, and the five block radius of their neighborhood had been everything Duo had known for the past few months. Maybe his itch was boredom-related. He pondered the idea, setting his chin in his palm. Though he and Hilde had made a regular point of having dinner and cards with their next door neighbors every weekend, the youth had stuck mostly to only business-related trips, and then only those which were walkable to complete. This seemed to suit Hilde fine, who insisted now more than ever that the boy would catch his death if he went out into the worsening weather. He was susceptible to colds, she'd said.

The smell of mud and ice had long ago overpowered any other aroma in the house, proliferating from the stack of logs Hilde had collected and stored to dry in a heavy pile by the pantry. Duo was watching a little white mouse scuttle in-between two of the bottom-most logs when his roommate entered the kitchen, tearing a string off a large jacket with her teeth as she went.

"Here... try it on now. I sewed the sleeve up." Hilde gestured at Duo to stand, and he did, though his knees wobbled a little weakly beneath him. As Hilde had predicted, he hadn't been feeling entirely up to par as of recently.

"Oh boy, my Nanook coat." Duo chortled weakly, stooping to slip his arms into the thing. "Where's my spear?"

"Very funny, wise guy." Hilde forced a couple of sarcastic chuckles. "But you remember that you've been sick! I don't want you getting any worse because it's so damn cold in this drafty piece of shit house."

The American waved a dismissive hand at the girl, ignoring her for the most part. Leaning over himself, he set to buttoning the double set of gigantic wooden buttons which ran up the front of the behemoth-sized coat. It was tan, and as he fastened the thing shut, Duo fantasized that he was the exact size and shape of a potato. Life as a potato sounded relatively easy on the scale of things, he thought to himself as he fumbled with the drawstrings by the hood. After all, one would have no bills to pay. No relationships to worry about. No memory whatsoever, come to think. Yes... life seemed a shade more appealing as a root, excluding the part where one was eaten. What a simple, sweet life to be a potato. Maybe a baked potato, even. At least that way, he'd be warm.

"I look like a potato." The boy echoed his thoughts, sounding dull and dead against the walls of the kitchen.

Hilde scoffed. "You look very handsome! And you also look... cozy. So shut up and try the hat on too."

By the time Hilde had finished decking her friend in hand-made apparel, the boy stood totally and completely obscured by fabric. Only his eyes, the top of his nose, and his braid were free from the tyrannous clutches of the stiffening winter wear, and looking Duo over, Hilde couldn't help but laugh a little. His eyes said 'I'm going to kill you', though the girl very much doubted he had the skill to move very quickly at all anymore. Not with so many layers on.

"You _do _look like a potato."

"Fuck off." a protest muffled by six yards of scarf.

Hilde grinned, and slid up to him. "Good enough to eat." She jabbed a finger in what would have been the direction of his pectorals, but her hand sunk into the coat and was buried instead. Duo chortled through his scarf, and offered another 'fuck off', though this one was with a little more humility.

Her smile fading, Hilde rested a hand on Duo's arm, and suddenly she took on a serious expression instead, stressing the severity of the moment. "For real, Duo. I want you safe. I care about you a lot, you know."

Looking into her eyes, Duo could only read truth, and for a moment they simply stood and stared at each other.

"Aw hell, darlin', I love you too." The American at last announced, and rolled the girl up into an awkward and smothering embrace. She shrieked with fake terror from within the cloying folds of the coat, and flailed in the suffocating grip, both crying and laughing at once.

"Aghh! I can't breathe!" The girl screamed, somewhere in the vicinity of Duo's stomach. But soon enough, both people were laughing, and for a while they wrestled like that in the kitchen.

* * *

The snow came down in great, feathery clumps, settling in a pristine white carpet across the patchy lawn of the scrap yard. It compressed into nothing as Duo trudged down the path towards the gate, feet sinking to the ankles. His heavy work boots, however, let no hint of a chill in to wet the boy's toes, and he moved with a relative ease, despite the steadily thickening terrain. Ignoring the whispering rush the ice made as his shoes dug quiet holes in the whiteness, he passed the leaning wooden fence, all strung with icicles, and headed down the street.

It had been weeks since the boy had found a moment to himself. Muttering even now, under his breath, Duo shoved his cold hands deep in his coat pockets and hunched against the direction of the wind. Hilde had been a constant fixture at his side since his return from the hospital, and though her presence was by no means undesired, her badgering about his good health could sometimes grow wearisome.

Turning along the sidewalk at the end of the street, Duo made his way along the incline of a hill, following the cement he could feel beneath his boots, scratchy and hard even through the snow. The world was a blanket of nothing all around him, thick, voluminous layers of frosting-white ice building meadows and valleys out of people's hedgerows, and making mountains of vacant cars. He shuffled along, the quiet almost burning it's humming sound into the American's pink ears. It was an hour of calm, just before the rush hour when the streets would be filled with slow moving, honking vehicles, making their sluggish ways home after a long day's work. In an hour, this calm reverence he took from the unbroken, almost ethereal nature of the glimmering blues and ivories, would be inevitably destroyed.

Duo swayed a little as he moved up the street, feeling a wave of heat build up beneath his heavy coat and tent close to his burning flesh, stifling him a little. It was bad enough that his head had been pounding since morning... this might as well add itself to his already rapidly ballooning repertoire of strange and offputtingly vague illnesses as well. Hilde had been right, all this week, though it stung Duo's pride to admit it. Maybe he was catching a cold. But her constant badgering about his good health had made the boy sometimes want to ream her out more than anything. Though she probably deserved a thanks, she could be annoyingly insistent when it came to proper eating, or where to sleep, and so Duo had bolted the moment she'd stepped out to run a few of her errands.

The coolness of the air against Duo's hot face felt soothing, and he sighed a little, watching his breath rise up into the air in quick-melting clouds. The convenience store would be open again from lunch hour by now. Having picked up countless small items for Hilde's cooking and cleaning projects from the tiny family-run store, the American boy knew it's exact location. However, today, for the first time since his return to the familiar-but-frightening walls of the scrap house, Duo was going for himself. Though he wasn't quite sure of it, the youth had a strange inclination that he smoked.

Licking his lips, he imagined the taste of the tobacco on his tongue, but frowned when his mind turned the flavor metallic instead. More like... sucking on a penny. Duo scuffed a boot deep in the snow as he walked along, kicking some of the powdery white out in front of him.

Smooth and metallic. Like sucking on a penny? No, not a coin at all. But what?

The familiar flavor wavered elusively at the edge of Duo's recollection, taunting him. It was strange not to remember such a familiar taste. Though now the boy was no longer dwelling on the thought of cigarettes, the subject had prompted a different memory. This odd flavor like copper, but not quite.

Snow?

Holding out a hand, Duo stumbled forward to catch a thick clump of snow as it made it's sluggish descent. It tasted like a cold wind, and dust and earth. But it did taste a little like copper, and the boy frowned as he walked along, thinking quietly to himself. City snow. Pollution gave it that flavor. Strange that something so polluted looked so clean when it laid undisturbed. It was at that thought that made Duo recall a conversation he'd once had with Hilde, out on the lawn on the day of their biggest open lot sale. She'd sat at his folding card table and told him how to lie. 'You've got to make it so close to the truth that the lie is undetectable. It's a common rule.'

Fresh snow, a blank slate. But it was already spoiled, wasn't it?

* * *

"Thanks, Peter. I'll see you on Sunday."

"Take care, Duo! Tell your lady she's got her new fluted screws in, if she wants to come by and pick some up with the eggs."

"Yeah, alright," Duo shot a hand up into the air as he exited the tiny convenience store, smiling back over a bulky shoulder at the old man behind the counter. "I'll send Hilde over. See you later, man."

When the automatic doors folded open, they groaned with the strain of pulling through the snow outside. Already, it was beginning to pile up against the glass and the side of the building, and fell in little avalanches over Duo's boots as he passed over the threshold of the store.

The sky churned, and from it's low-hanging clouds snow was beginning to fall faster now. Though the day was still young, those beneath the storm saw their surroundings like night, and as Duo trudged through the thickening drifts, he began to worry for the first time about the weather. In the distance, a group of yelling people were gathered around a car, obviously stuck in an icy hole, breaking the serenity Duo had entered the store loving. Now, however, with the ominous blacks and blues blotting the sky out, the boy was slowly starting to feel more nervous about being outside than relieved. The shouting of the arguing people followed him down the street, until he turned the corner, and the buildings cut their voices off in the thick air.

Moving a little quicker now, the braided youth began to fish around in his bag for the cigarettes he had acquired. The box was smooth and hard beneath his fingers, and once in hand, he stuffed the plastic bag into his back pants pocket. As if already totally familiarized with the motions, Duo shed the top of the plastic wrapping, flicked the box open, and hit the bottom just hard enough for a single cigarette to pop up by about an inch or so. Slightly amazed at the methodical action of his own hands, the boy took the cigarette between his lips and lit it with a lighter which had already been in his pocket.

Inhaling, Duo tasted the slight sweetness of the tobacco, and felt the initial tingling sensation as the smoke burnt his tongue. Then came the tiny rush of pleasure the boy somehow had known from the beginning would come, and he grinned grey clouds. It was like tasting heaven, and for a moment, he paused in the middle of a deep drift, savoring the delight of it all. But soon the cigarette was gone, and tossing the butt into the snow, the American continued his trek.

The way home was harder than the way out, Duo decided. He was sweating in his jacket by the end of the block, and by halfway down the next, he was panting with the strain of shifting through the snow. It was coming up around his calves now, and the wind had all but stopped in favor of dumping yet even more icy flakes across the desolate landscape. Even the twinkling of people's lights from within the faraway windows of other houses were no comfort to Duo as he battled the elements. The sky grew darker, and fifteen minutes into the five minute walk, Duo reached the top of the hill which ran parallel to the children's park.

Standing stark and frightening in the middle of a vast stretch of nothing, the playground looked like a hollow, whistling castle of ice queens of old. The twisting slides had warped into distorted roofs, and the meshed bars into a sinister portcullis. The swings made for creaking sentries, and Duo shivered as he skirted their ominous shadows. He made it until the next tree by the road, before swaying on nauseous legs, and having to stop.

Feeling his head pound, and his stomach churn, Duo burnt inside his heavy jacket. Hilde had been right all along, the boy grudgingly admitted to himself. Shit on the side of the road felt better than this. He was catching a cold, if he didn't already have one.

Maybe going out hadn't been such a wise idea, after all.

But home was still a ways to go. Staggering out into the road again, Duo resumed his weary pace. If he wasn't back by the time Hilde got home from her errands, he would never hear the end of it. Her pestering was bad enough without fueling her with an actual reason to lecture.

"Alright, alright... Jesus." the American muttered to himself, complying with the insistent voices in his head. Automatically, one foot went out. And then another, and he began to move again.

The scenery slowly shifted angles as the boy made his way down the hill, moving further and further away from the frightening towers of the deserted playground. With every step a concentrated labor, the braided boy's breath grew short with the strain. Soon, his head was beginning to spin, rising off his shoulders and floating away on the breeze, like an untethered balloon. Tress tipped, and suddenly the scenery began to shift angles much faster– and for a moment, Duo hung suspended between sky and ground, unsure as to which plane his feet rightly belonged.

_/great. Now I'm gonna fuckin' die./_ was the only thought which came to the youth as he fell. And then there was the freezing rush of ice slipping down his neck as his body hit the ground.

Dark came, almost immediately.

* * *

_The party outside was a myriad of happy sounds and colors. Duo moved amongst the crowd without paying much attention, scrubbing an angry arm across his eyes to clear the wetness as his feet carried him along the far wall. It would only be a few more feet, now... just a few more steps, and he would be home free. Away from this place, and this night, and these people. It was only when he heard Quatre and Hilde chatting loudly out on the second patio that reality returned, and the boy made motions to recover his appearance. Tie straightened again, he dusted his blue jacket off and pulled it over his arms. Careful, patting hands tucked in his rumpled shirt, and it was only after making a grab for a glass of champagne off of a waiter's tray did he notice the blood on his knuckles. That was quietly rubbed off last, into the inside lining of his jacket, where nobody would see. _

"_-told him, absolutely not! I'm just not that kind of girl, you know?" Hilde's jarring tones hit Duo's eardrums before he could even see her._

"_Oh dear. Did you... eh, did you-"_

"_Hit him? Damn right I did. I mean, what kinda gentleman asks a lady to do that? So I just told him to take those ping-pong balls and shove them right up his-" _

"_Duo!" Quatre all but exploded, upon spotting the braided boy as he edged through the patio door. Quick as a whip, the petit boy shot out a hand and all but dragged the American across their distance, and forcibly stuck him in the middle of their conversation. _

_All around them were the sounds of merrymaking, and twinkling lamps hung from an intricate wooden frame around the garden below, casting butterfly shadows beneath the people outside. It was evening, and soft, harmonious music wafted up from the hired quartet who were stationed by the ice sculptures to the farthest side of the hedge. Brightly dressed, colorful crowds shifted from place to place all around the Winner's estate house, laughing and chatting in courteous tones as various sized lamps suspended from the framework around the garden attracted fluttering moths, and low-hanging lightning bugs. Notorious for the elegance of their social events, the Winner family had turned Quatre's birthday party into something of particular magnificence. _

"_Hey! My main man!" Hilde's drink sloshed in her delicate crystal glass as she slapped Duo across the back. "I was wondering where you went to. Where's Heero?" _

_Wearing a very carefully crafted expression of indifference, Duo shrugged. "Dunno." _

"_Well, where the hell'd he go off to?" _

_Another shrug, like dusting off the shoulder of his jacket. _

_Both of the two on the patio were looking especially splendid, the American noted, in the cool evening breeze. Hilde herself was sporting a lovely powder blue cocktail dress and a set of real pearls her grandmother had managed to save through the war. At first, though she had acted a bit awkward sporting the girlish garment, she soon found her niche; drinking didn't require her to move. Only stand... thus avoiding the uncomfortable subject amongst this rich society of her regular mannish swagger. And since Duo had previously been gone from the scene, it was up to the current host to make sure she was taken care of. _

_If anything, Quatre looked like a prince. Devastatingly handsome in an embroidered silk jacket, elegant black handwork traced dignified Arabian warriors mounted on gilded horses, marching across his lapels and sleeves. The white shirt beneath it rivaled the jacket in simplicity, and a gentle v curved into his throat, where a single pearl pinned the neck closed. Short black pants flashed a bit of ankle, where his feet were shod in a pair of slippers to match his jacket. It was his birthday after all, and he looked very much the part of the young master whom he was. _

"_Maybe Heero's gone to dance with Miss Relena?" Hilde suggested, settling a fist on her hip._

_Swallowing a little bile as it rose in his throat, Duo tried to keep his expression pleasant. "Haven't seen him. No clue where he is, so don't ask me... Because I don't know." _

_The blonde frowned, ignoring Duo's ramble.. "I wonder where he went? I was looking forward to getting a picture of all of us together. Samara is teaching Trowa and Wufei how to play croquet down on the south lawn, so Heero is the only one missing." Biting his lower lip, the boy's face melted adorably into consternation. _

_Feeling his stomach churn unpleasantly, Duo offered another faint shrug before downing half of his drink in one go. If his bad luck would continue to keep him, he would be here for the rest of the night, when all he wanted to do was... to be still. And quiet. And more than anything, to be alone to bear his suffering in private. _

"_I know! Why don't we take a set of you two?" a brilliant light erupted across Quatre's face, and he smiled brightly between Hilde and Duo. "You know, for your new house? You'll need pictures to hang on those empty walls."_

"_Yeah! Yeah! Duo, want to?" More of Hilde's drink sloshed up out of her glass with her excitement, and she grabbed her new roommate's arm. "Our kitchen is bare as a bone. We sure as hell need a little decoration, huh? Come on, the lawn is better for pictures..." _

_It was nearly an hour later when Quatre was finished with them. Smiling and tired, Hilde leaned up against Duo's back as they sat on the end of a picnic table, while their host continued to fiddle with the settings on his camera. _

"_Oh, I think a little bit of my thumb got in that last one..." _

"_Really?" _

"_Should we take another? Or should we wait for Heero for a three-shot?" _

"_Are you kidding? Heero's gone!" the girl laughed, shouting a little to accentuate the futility of Quatre's idea. "He's not coming back. At least, not tonight. What a chilly guy." _

"_Well, I don't know about that," The blonde dug a toe into the grass, shrugging a little. "Maybe he really is with Relena. So I'll just take one more shot of you two, and that'll be it, I think. I'm running out of film anyway..." _

_Hilde shook her head, smiling into the cool night. "Nuh-uh. Forget about it. We'll take a little bit of you with us to our new place. Right, Duo?" _

_But the boy had already turned his face away from them, and curled deep into his own lap as if in exhaustion, to catch a moment of peace. Thinking he was sleeping, they both laughed, and the boy felt Hilde's hand on his back as she heaved herself off the table. They returned to the party after that, and the American was left alone. But as he curled there, still quite awake, he couldn't quite manage to bring himself to raise his head. It had already been too late ,when Quatre had first mentioned Heero's absence. He would never show them what had struck him so hard, and his arms came tight around his head as he concealed the swell of tears sliding stinging tracks down his ruddy cheeks. They would know soon. They would all know about his humiliation. _

_Heero was gone._

_

* * *

_

"Hey."

The soft navy evening slowly came away in sheets, and Duo rose through their translucent layers as if they were tides in the ocean.

"Hey, get up."

Feeling the haze rolling away from him like sea foam, Duo heard the first audible sounds of discontentment issue forth from between his lips. A long groan, making his chest rumble, deep at his core, through a pair of chilled-solid lips. Lips which were, in fact, attached to an even more solid body.

And then, came the acute, jabbing sensation of a finger being repeatedly smashed into the side of his face.

"Uugh... Jesus christ, Hilde, lay off..." Duo moaned, squinting against the chilly flakes of ice which settled against the outsides of his eyelids. As he rolled, so came the distinct crunching of snow, and the American at last recalled falling into the freezing road to begin with.

"That's some cold you've caught." Came a careless voice from above the downed youth, and as he heard it, the distinct feeling of familiarity welled up in him, as if it had only recently been on hand. Resonances from his strange and disconcerting dream still clung to him, and Duo wallowed in the strangeness of it, though he could no longer remember the specifics of the dream to begin with.

"I'm... not sick..." The American muttered, opening his eyes slowly, and with quite a lot of glowering, like one emerging unnecessarily from a deep hibernation.

"If you're not sick, then why are you lying in the middle of the road?"

Slowly, Duo's vison focused. Though it was dark now, and his body was numb with cold, the boy still managed to put a hand out to scrub at his bleary face... when it came away again, a discernable figure could be seen leaning over him. It was a boy, approximately his own age, with a pale face, and wild, choppy hair, much like the dark storm clouds behind him. Something flashed recognition in a vague corner of Duo's recollection, and he frowned into the faintly Japanese features of his rescuer.

"Hey... Don't I know you?"

* * *

TBC

* * *

**Author's note**: aaaah-hahaha... the most bogus, pointless chapter EVER. I didn't tell you guys ANYTHING... aaaah-haha! Haha... ha... well, actually, yes I did, if you read carefully between the lines. It all adds up, my friends. I've got it all upstairs, brewing in a big, backwards, turnabout circle. It all makes sense in the end. (If you, by chance, happen to be... me.)

Anyway, I've got the next two chapters pretty planned out, so they should be coming much quicker than this one did. (I wrote it twice. O.O;; ) So, yep. Stay tuned.


	6. The Secret Collision

**Author's Note**: oooh, lookie lookie who has a plot line. Why, could it be... MeeeEEe? She who ignores plots in favor of either frivolous descriptions of pointless scenery, or smexy scenes I can never finish? Oh boy! Oh boy.

Ps- hostilecrayon, you so effortlessly and constantly review! I am writing a chapter right now, a few chapters up, still brewing in my head, which is undoubtedly Quatre-centric, and is undoubtedly devoted to you.

Thanks everybody for reading and reviewing!

-Onions.

* * *

**Forgive and Forget**  
Chapter VI: (The Secret Collision)

**Author**: Onions Make Me Cry

**Rating**: pg-13 (what is that in website rating...a K?)

**Pairing**: 1 x 2, secret 2 x 1, eventual 1 2, while all along we pepper with 2 x H (shaken, not stirred)

* * *

"Hey... don't I... know you?"

Duo squinted against the tickling flakes of snow as they settled in his eyelashes, staring up from flat on his back at the figure of his rescuer. It was the boy from the junk yard sale, no doubt about it... with a face like that, it was difficult to completely forget such a person. But what was he doing here? And how come the memory of his face had come so quickly? Maybe it had been the quiet in his eyes that had pulled the vague recollection from the American's otherwise jumbled assortment of confusing experiences over the past few months. Asian in ethnicity, the hovering youth held a kind of dark, exotic beauty, and Duo found himself staring, with an unabashed fascination into the cobalt eyes above him, confused by their color. Perhaps only one of the boy's parents had been Japanese... and the other, possibly eastern European? Regardless, there was a potency in his stare which made Duo wriggle beneath the scrutiny, despite even the fact that his limbs were nearly frozen solid.

The hovering boy leaned in a little, a frown puckering the corner of his sculpted mouth as he inspected his find, and the American waited with baited breath for exactly what words would next issue from between the lips of his mysterious rescuer.

Sucking in a chilly breath, the dark-haired youth quirked an eyebrow. "Why are you dressed like a potato?"

_

* * *

_

_/"What do you mean, 'missing'?"/_

"I mean, gone! He disappeared while I was at the store picking up chicken and peppers for dinner!" Hilde practically shrieked into the receiver of the telephone, pacing back and forth across the corroding kitchen floor. "What should I do? What if he's been caught somewhere by this weather? What if he's gotten hurt? How should I find him?"

The girl could practically hear the skinny doctor across the line pinching the bridge of his nose.

_/"Miss Schbeiker, your responsibility is to ensure that episodes like this don't happen. And you say you were just... popping... down to the store?"/_

"That's what I told you, yeah! But this isn't like Duo... he's not well! I told him to stay close to the house."

_/ "You can't always be assured that your patient will behave as you dictate. Especially someone such as my client, Mr. Maxwell. His quizzical personality will lead him to dangerous places. Places that we have entrusted _you_, Miss Schbeiker, to protect him from."/ _a bubbling protest began to rise in Hilde's throat, but the doctor quickly overruled her. _/ "Fortunat-, please, Miss Schbeiker! _Fortunately_, we already have a few agents in the area. The inclement weather is presenting a bit of trouble with the tracking bug we put on him, but we'll most likely be able to get a visual ID in the next few hours. If he's traveling by foot, he can't have gone far. Not in this weather."/_

The telephone cord was curled so tightly around Hilde's finger by the time her conversation had begun to finally wind down, that the tip was turning a slow shade of rich purple. Faintly disgusted, she shook her hand free and stuck the throbbing digit in her mouth as she clutched the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

"And what then?"

_/ "We'll return him, of course." /_ A sticky-simple answer... one which sent a faint chill up the girl's spine.

"I see. Well, that's all I can really ask then, I suppose."

_/ "I'm glad you're seeing the severity of the situation, Miss Schbeiker. And please, do be more careful in the future. Mr. Maxwell is counting on you."/_

"Yeah..." a half-grin directed at nobody in particular, touching Hilde's stomach with a bit of nausea. "He is... isn't he?"

She left the phone off the hook, after that.

* * *

The shoulder beneath his own was strong and solid. Duo allowed himself to be assisted by his rescuer with only a mild sense of indignance, at last coming to terms with his own weak state. They moved slowly together down the snowy sidewalk, as the American was limping a little, and still a bit more nauseous than he was willing to admit to an almost complete stranger. Despite however powerful the eyes of a stranger could be.

"So, what's your name?" Duo prompted, his breath heaving steaming clouds of vapor into the frigid air. "How am I supposed to thank my hero properly if I don't even know who you are?"

The pale youth smiled a little, dark lashes flickering down towards the snow. "Heero."

"Yeah, hero. That's what I called you. You got a problem?"

"No, it's just... Heero. That's my name."

"Oh!" A startled look, and Duo's lips poised in the round O of sudden understanding. "Heero, huh? What a coincidence! Weird name."

Duo frowned, his shoulders going stiff as he stumbled a little over a hidden branch, and Heero stooped in order to keep their balance. "Like Duo is any better."

"Hey! Nothing wrong with a good strong name like Duo. Means two! And two's better than one, they say. A hero stands alone."

Again, that faint half-smile, directed towards the darkening blues of the snowy pathway. And for a moment, as Duo tilted his head to peer across to his rescuer, something stirred, deep in his stomach, that he had no control of, nor any reason for feeling as strange. But there it was, a sort of quiet awe for the person wedged beneath his shoulder. As if, that mysterious expression, so quiet and careful, were something very valuable.

"You're right. Sorry... I suppose Duo is a good name. So is Heero. But if it were up to you," Heero began, dark eyes flickering up to meet his. "would you name me something different?"

"Huh?" Another fuzzy wave of deja vu, and Duo numbly shook his head. "No, uhh... Heero sounds pretty good to me."

What kind of question was that, anyway? What names? And yet, the boy had the distinct impression that such a question had been posed to him once before, though under different circumstances. They walked in silence for a while after that, Heero angling them at a slight diagonal so he could kick a path out in the snow. The American followed along the cleared ground, still half-slung over Heero's stooping shoulder, and it was like this, moving only with the crunch of ice beneath their feet, that Duo made a realization; Heero had no way of knowing his name. Even at the lot sale, Heero had never sought Hilde out for the part he'd been looking for. Nobody could have told him the things he quite plainly already knew. So... how was it that he did know? The braided youth's curious eyes never left the cool features of his rescuer after that, feeling almost as if the secrets he sought were just behind the other's mysterious features.

"...Are you sure I don't know you from somewhere else?" Duo drawled, as they reached the bottom of the hill.

Heero merely grunted, and pulled them up to a stop. "My apartment is on Lee Street, just a block down. I think it would be better to head there, considering the weather. Your junk shop isn't for another five blocks, and by the time we get there, it may already be dark." Factual words. However, he did pause to shoot Duo with a mild, quizzical glance. "It's up to you, though. I'd understand if you wanted me to take you straight home. I'm a stranger, after all."

Duo paused, hanging on Heero's strong shoulder. A lip automatically went up between his teeth, and he worried on it anxiously as he thought. It was true, the weather was getting worse. But Hilde was most likely on the verge of having a panic attack. That is to say, if she'd managed to make it home from the grocery store without being swept up in a snow drift. She was awfully skinny, after all.

"Ehh.. I dunno... my girlfriend will probably be worried."

"Will she? How long have you been dating?" A bland question from the back of Heero's head, as he peered in the opposite direction down the street.

"Oh, um, well... let's see..." The American thought. "Since before my accident. We've been living together since then, anyway... I had this gig as a construction worker in the summer, and got hit in the head with a beam. I mean, it was an accident, but it put me out of commission for a long time. Hilde's been taking care of me, so I don't wanna upset her... you know? Girls get a little crazy, sometimes."

"Hmmm."

"What, you don't have a lady?" Duo laughed, though it made him feel more than a little lightheaded. "I thought chicks were supposed to dig the strong, silent type."

"I've never really been fascinated with girls." Heero monotoned, still checking their surroundings for the best traveling path. "They're mostly afraid of me, generally speaking."

"Huh? Afraid of you? Why?"

Heero shrugged, and Duo jiggled beneath it. "Because I fought in the war."

"Oh."

The war. Signs of it were all around them, even today. Ravaged terrain, mostly. Bullet holes in some older buildings. Rubble were neighborhoods used to be. But time was healing even those wounds. Duo had seen construction teams like his own, moving in to clear away the useless debris, and begin to rebuild. He himself couldn't remember the war, but from the pictures Hilde had shown him on the computer, he knew that even his amnesia wasn't unwelcome in this case. War was a gruesome thing.

A heavy gust of wind picked up, blowing low and cold, wracking their frames with a deadly chill. Duo squinted against the flying snow and clung tighter to Heero's warm shoulder, unaware for the moment of Heero's careful eyes, which softened a little as the American folded in his arm drew a bit closer.

"Jesus. This is terrible." Duo mumbled through chattering teeth once the wind had subsided. "Let's get out of here. I feel awful."

Boosting Duo up a little, Heero pulled the sick boy's arm over his shoulder and wrapped his fingers around the dangling wrist there. He would carry the American, if necessary... the gesture said it all.

"Where to?"

Another smile from Duo, though this one a little queasy. He really was beginning to feel the weather now, and his knees shook weakly beneath him. "You sure you aren't a serial killer or something?"

Heero shrugged again, already beginning to move. "Well... I can't make any promises."

"In that case, lead the way, good sir." The American waved in the direction of Lee Street with a trembling hand, despite the humor in his tone. If he was out any longer, he really would freeze to death. "Let's just get going."

* * *

The light in Hilde's office was weak and sickly. Standing in the doorframe, the girl observed the narrow stretch of room, taking in the messy desk, the crane-necked lamps, the ancient, creaking chair with a busted pillow, the shadowy dark oriental rug...Outside her small window, snow had piled almost halfway up the pane of glass, making the room darker even than she'd expected. A hand went out to the wall, and she flicked on the overhead light, where a bladed fan began to slowly circulate the stale air.

How many hours had she spent, in this tiny little room? Dozens. Hundreds. For a while after they'd first moved in to the broken-down household, Duo had done nothing but mope around in the garage. It had been almost more than a year ago. Hilde had taken on their financial responsibilities immediately, in order to take some of the pressure off of her brooding friend, and had sectioned off this tiny room for herself. Though she was close to Duo, there were certain things concerning the war that she could never get him to discuss, and so it was with some level of frustration and worry that the girl observed his degenerative state, though tax forms, and checks and balances. It seemed almost as if... without the war to guide him, there was nothing else. Only his hands, which in those days had been devoted to the feverish construction of small toys, tools, and machines, if only to keep busy. Even when Duo made the eventual shift between the garage and his room upstairs, his activities were restricted almost entirely to his building hobby. Many days and nights had been witness to Hilde trying to persuade her friend to come downstairs with offers of food, or friends, or a trip somewhere exciting. But the American had always devoutly refused, remaining instead perched on the edge of his bed with a folding card table pulled up close to him, where his projects were sprawled in oily piles.

Hilde sighed to herself, hearing even then, the persistent knocking she'd once participated in. Her own helpless pleas from outside the door echoed in her own mind, and the girl's calm face cracked. Had it been worth this new torture? Was Duo's previous suffering really enough to support the agony they now both secretly endured in this constant, endless game of deceit? What was the point of forcing her friend to unwittingly take pills to make him sick, if his new memory modification would only continue to offer him the harsh alienation of no background? How could anybody love, if they first didn't love themselves?

Moving quietly across the room, Hilde squatted by the far left end of her desk, and pulled away a scarf from a small table wedged between a file cabinet and the corner. The cloth came away smoothly, but revealed, not a table as it had looked from at a distance, but a small safe with a round, metallic lock centered in the very middle of the face of the door. It was where she kept the money from the shop, and from the lot, and until recently, the commission cash from those select things Duo had been asked to fix. He'd been a notoriously good motorcycle mechanic, before all of this.

The combination rolled off her fingers, Hilde barely having to think as the cool clicking of the lock springs beneath her fingers offered some faint noise to the otherwise quiet room. And when the door came away, squeaking on weighted hinges, the girl had to stop herself a moment before carrying on.

It came down to this, didn't it? This... intrusion into the privacy and pride of her closest friend.

There, folded in half and stuck in the far back above the different cash slots, was Duo's personal file. Everything she'd never wanted to know, and more. The complete story, written by Maxwell personally, and given to the kind doctor with the small, flickering glasses as a full account of everything and anything the boy no longer wished to remember. The document itself was very unprofessional, some pages ripped, others with smeared ink All of it was written by hand, and the whole thing had been poorly bound with a ratty old ribbon. The doctors had made a replica copy and gifted Hilde with the original, supposing she knew more about her friend than they, and thus would be able to deduce minor details they had missed. But what they failed to anticipate was a relatively simple issue. They hadn't thought that Hilde wouldn't read it.

The skinny girl reached out with quivering fingers, closing around the rough paper. Until then, it had been almost like a game, to pretend that her friend was still the same person she'd always known and loved. They still had the same house, shared a deep bond, laughed together, ate together, and sometimes even slept together... But today had shaken her fragile grip on the game. Duo was growing more and more apart from her, as he began to come into his new personality. He was becoming someone entirely different, and in his failure to resume any of the old, familiar habits Hilde had foolishly imagined would return, he was changing character into a person Hilde liked very much, but found nearly impossible to love. How was it possible to love someone who couldn't even love themselves? The question repeatedly presented itself, boring holes into Hilde's otherwise pristine logic.

Licking her lips, the lithe girl moved to her creaking office chair, and collapsed into it's ancient embrace with Duo's file sticky in her hands. If she was going to find the reserves of stregnth she needed for this job, she would have to find sufficient reason to hide Duo from himself. The rat-faced doctor had been so unhesitatingly clear about it, when they'd talked before... the life Duo had once lived, was one he had no interest whatsoever in continuing. He had been a broken man, upon requesting the procedure.

Unfolding the document, Hilde carefully pulled back the first page, and began to read.

'_Duo Maxwell Personal File_

_First version faithfully completed by Duo Maxwell_

_Day 1, 11:45 pm_

_Dear Doc, _

_Before I jump right into this whole goddamn fucking mess I've created for myself, I think there's something pretty important that I think you ought to know. It'll probably explain a lot later on, so let me just lay it down for you, in plain English. I've fallen in love with someone very dangerous.'_

Eyes widening, Hilde clutched the paper in her hands with the vice grip of a bear trap. Only a page in, and she already knew. Or, at least, her suspicions were quickly being confirmed, anyway.

It was true then, wasn't it? About back then... So many things...

'_Pretty dumb, huh, Doc? I mean, who falls in love with a murderer anyway?'_

All this time...

'_But that aside, I can't deny my basic instincts. Heero's sort of undeniable, when he wants a fella to listen. But then again, I never really tried to tell him no.'_

There was no turning back now.

* * *

_**TBC**_

* * *

**Author's Note**: haha, no flashback today! Ooh, nononono. I shall delay revealing the truth, if I have to fight every one of you, with nails and teeth! But oooh, how close I will graze to it. (And, on a completely different sub note, I thought this story was gonna be three, four chapters, max? And wow, look at it grow now!) 


	7. Shadows

Author's note: haha... well... shall we continue Duo's sex dreams? I think so! Affirmative, fangirls... it's officially been too long since we've had a little 1x2 steamy kiss kiss action... if ya know wad I mean? Eh? Eh? Anyway, plot development is when Heero... and he... but then they...

Erg. Just read it. -.-;;

ps, ha ha! I've decided not to make the flashbacks in chronological order anymore, so.. .poo poo for you guys. Unless you like smut, which I guess most of you do... so this decision in which case is probably good for you. XD

-Onions

* * *

Forgive and Forget:

Chapter VII: Shadows

* * *

Relief finally came when the boys made it beneath the tiny awning at the bottom of Heero's apartment. The building itself was a dingy, sludge-colored brick monstrosity with yellow-tinted windows, but even the cracks in the glass taped from behind to prevent wind entry looked promising to the American, as he imagined how much warmer it must be just beyond those dirty front doors. The snow thinned as they'd grown closer, until just by the first step, a relatively untouched strip of clean pavement could be seen glowing a dirty grey against the blue-white of the surrounding snow. It was only luck that the wind was blowing against the opposite side of the building. Otherwise, digging would have been the only way to clear a passage to the stairwell.

"Jesus Christ, look at it come down!" Duo panted, sweating beneath his heavy jacket as Heero settled him against the brick. It really was a winter wonderland, transforming the urban scenery around them into vast and empty fields of sparkling ice and shadow. It was almost frightening, in a way. Already, icicles were beginning to creep slowly over the edge of the creaking awning, the roof heaving at the weight of the stacking snow, and as he stood there, the American wondered how long it would be before the entire city was simply swallowed whole.

"Let me just grab my access card from the autolockers..." Heero mumbled, too preoccupied to pay much attention to what Duo was saying. "I'll be back in a second."

"Don't be gone too long! I'll freeze to death out here, yanno?"

Duo's protests followed Heero around the edge of the building.

The alcove where the autolockers were wired into the central power line off the building was also under a small awning, though this one was in a slightly more remote, and less well-lit area. Heero moved with quiet, confident steps, though his eyes seemed to run along the ground as he moved. As the pale boy stepped out into the snow beneath one awning and the next, snow instantly settled in his dark hair, and all along the block, the towering streetlights flickered to life. Light catching the snow, Heero smiled a little to himself as his eye caught what he'd been looking for.

A long shadow, with boxy shoulders and a tiny, narrow head, splayed out across the fresh powder like the elongated limbs of a spindly spider.

Reaching into his coat, Heero slowly pulled his gun out and turned it towards the sky. A thumb clicking back the safety was all he required to draw out his follower once and for all.

"Mr. Yuy, I presume?" The dark figure emerged from a slice of shadow just beyond the autolockers, and stepped into the trickling light. It was a middle-aged man, olive in complexion and wrapped up to his nose in a dark scarf and coat. His receding hairline was partially veiled beneath a shepherd's cap that collected snow along the brim, even as he stood for so many first seconds out from beneath the protection of the awning. He would have been almost completely inconspicuous, if it hadn't been for a tiny pin on his left lapel, which shimmered in the lamplight. A Regency Hospital pin.

A doctor, then? No, this was a task of a somewhat more rudimentary nature. Any one of Duo's doctors would already be tucked safely in their beds. Not to mention, a doctor would probably have been a little less heavy-footed than this goon. His breathing alone was loud enough to serve as a sufficient clue to detect his presence, much less his conspicuous manor of tracking them... all stomps and coughs.

Heero grunted, though he didn't yet holster his gun. "What you're doing is a waste of effort."

"Mr. Yuy, your presence is within breach of contract. I've been ordered to remove Mr. Maxwell from the premises and return him home." The big man paused, rolling his shoulders beneath his heavy coat. "My orders stand, with or without your cooperation."

"Leave. Save yourself the trouble." the Japanese boy monotoned, and with surety in his movements he braced his gun with both arms, pointing directly at the bulky man's head. "He's mine."

The first meaty fist was an obvious throw. The punch landed on empty air as Heero danced back in the snow and dodged a second blow meant for his head. And though his gun was still loaded and ready in his hand, he had to credit some intelligence to the older man as they swung and stepped along the icy walkway. The thug knew enough that Heero wouldn't endanger his own role by firing off anything loud. Nothing to draw Duo's attention. Nothing to get himself noticed. His bluff had been called.

Coming over Heero, heavy and frightening, the boy jerked sideways to avoid being snatched up in a massive swipe, while at once swinging a fist of his own. The first blow connected solidly with the man's stomach, and Heero could feel the breathy utterance of shock, warm and tickling across his face, as the wind flew out of his opponent's lungs as he fell to his knees. The butt on the gun came down twice, swiftly. The first time, to hit the thug across the face, and the second to knock him on the top of his skull. The man fell heavily into the muffling snow, unconscious.

For a minute after the conclusion of the fight, Heero stared down at the felled figure with a look of mild discontent. Heaving huge clouds of breath into the cold night, the condensation took on newer, solidifying shapes beneath the brightness of the surrounding lamplight. But soon after his second cloud of breath had dissapated into the chilly air, alertness returned to Heero once again and the boy glanced in both directions down the path, before taking hold of his enemy's shoulders and hefting the big man back into the shadows.

* * *

The door to Heero's apartment opened on creaky hinges, and the beeping of the auto lock on the door followed them in, chiming the hour. Duo still half-clung to the figure of his rescuer, though now he was trying to support more of his own weight by sliding one of his chapped hands against the wall... if not to recover some semblance of pride, in the home of a relative stranger. Shoes kicked off, they stumbled together into the living room.

"You live here?" Duo questioned with some wonderment, peering around the pristine apartment. "It's so... so..."

"Barren?" Heero supplied, sounding mirthless.

"Err, no, I was going to say... homey."

The American collapsed on the narrow blue couch with a forceful exhalation of breath, arms going up to wrap around the back as he sagged with exhaustion. Heero continued to stand, staring down at his new catch with an eye of sarcasm.

"No you weren't. You were going to tell me it was too clean. And you're right. I don't like mess."

It was true... the apartment did have a touch of something department store showcase about it, which leant the chilly feeling of a house not quite a home. It was obvious nothing was very lived-in... Well, everything except for the couch. The couch was squishy and comfortable, and worn along the arms from constant use. Though, as Duo eyeballed the cracks in the old leather, he doubted very much that it was Heero himself who had put so many loving dents in the thing. Though his Japanese friend did have an attractive air of mystery about him, he did also seem to be slightly prudish, in some aspects. Strange, that the two qualities went so closely hand in hand in this case.

"Nothing wrong with being tidy. I'm a clean person myself." The sitting boy proclaimed, but when Heero fixed him with an odd, disbelieving look, Duo forced himself to change the subject. "So... eh... I guess it's sofa city for me, huh? Thanks a lot, man... I mean, for the place to crash. I don't know what I would have done if nobody had found me out there."

Heero shook his head, dismissing his earlier look of speculativeness. "No. Somebody would have found you."

"You were the lucky one then, huh? Win an invalid for a day? Pick my ass up and drag me from place to place? I could be some homeless bum, waiting to steal your eggs and toilet paper in the middle of the night. You're a trusting kind of guy, aren't you?"

"No homeless person has hair like that." the boy jabbed a finger at Duo's braid and quirked an eyebrow. "I did find you, you're right. So, I suppose I am lucky... but I also found you sick, so first things first."

The American peered up expectantly at his stern-faced rescuer and offered a half-smile of gratitude, despite the lightheadedness which was beginning to catch up with him again. "And what would that be?"

"Take your clothes off."

* * *

_The dank, chill metal of the tiny room aboard Howard's cruiser began to warm beneath Duo's back as Heero hefted him high up against it, forcing the shinigami to wrap his ungainly legs around the torso there. And then there was nothing to do but wrap arms around the mess of soft hair somewhere around his collarbone, and moan audibly as Heero's hot mouth came down to clamp on one of his stiffening nipples. Everything was wet breath like this... so close together, so impossibly warm to the touch now, it was impossible not to feel. Whatever proclivities either of them had cared to bother with earlier had long since flown out the door and into the chilly night, when they'd come together for the first time, a few hours earlier. There was only flesh now, and a desire to exploit it. _

"_Ugnn... Heero... I can't... ahh!" Duo panted, heat flooding through his body as Heero jerked up against him where their groins met. "...I can't wait..."_

"_Shut up." the Japanese boy commanded heavily, pulling Duo down harder into him. "You're always talking. Shut up." _

"_I can't help it... You just ma-" But the American's words were stifled as Heero yanked Duo's lips down to his own by a rough handful of hair. _

_They stumbled back together, and Duo felt it when Heero's shoulders hit the opposite wall, just to the right of the sharp-edged bunk which hung somewhere closer to the ceiling than they'd been able to manage to reach. Not that it mattered, though... When Heero had knocked the lamp off the desk earlier, he'd killed the last light source they could have used to spot out the hitch in the metal to climb up the side anyway. _

_Again they were moving, and Heero swung them around to slam Duo into the wall for a second time. It was hard enough to knock some of the breath out of the boy, and he gasped, panting from the strange mix between the fingers running up his thighs and the throbbing sensation his back made against the metal. _

"_Jesus... take... take it easy..." The American managed, clinging closer to his lover as they ground together. The friction elicited a second gasp, though this one was followed up with a low moan. _

"_I thought I told you to shut up." Heero's voice was hot and heavy in the dark, and Duo was just about to hazard a retort when he felt hands gripping his hips. It was only a moment's warning, but enough to allow Duo to wrap his arms around Heero's shoulders before the other boy flung them out from the wall again and dumped Duo on the cold floor. He was hovering over the downed figure almost instantly, clamping a hand over the American's mouth and reaching teasing fingers down between the legs of his willing victim. _

_Groaning against the hot fingers pressed over his mouth, the sound muffled in the tiny room and hung low to the ground. Duo writhed against the blinding touch,__ once again forced to swallow his own words._

_

* * *

_

"Uhhhgh!" Duo jerked awake, blindly throwing out an arm to steady himself.

"Oh God..." the utterance was through his lips and gone before the boy really had the chance to acknowledge it, as his fingers touched the grout of the tile in the wall of the shower stall. Hot water poured down his back and shoulders, and Duo knew immediately he'd dozed off on his feet. For a moment, he felt sick with embarrassment and exhaustion, and burned a little hotter than the temperature of the water.

What had he... been dreaming, just now? The images faded quicker than he could touch them, though his flushed body seemed to suggest something of a possibly erotic nature. A hand even went to his stomach to brush down to the heat gathered below. But faces and circumstances were by now long since flown away to the graveyard of other broken dreams, and Duo had no choice but to relinquish the fleeing images. It was no surprise he was beginning to doze, considering his condition, but the fact that his body had begun to make an ill-placed demand did irritate the boy.

"...Uhhhhgh.." this time, the youth's voice came longer, and tasted faintly of frustration. Heero had been good enough to give him new clothes to wear, instead of the wet ones he'd already had on, but as things were going, it seemed like progressing any further than the confines of a hot washing was something close to impossible.

"Give me strength..." the muttering demand came away on wet lips, and Duo put out a trembling hand to shut the hot water off once and for all.

* * *

A pale, trickling light came in through the panes of the narrow living room window that night. Outside, the snow continued to fall, though gently now, and settled with a quiet ease along the high necks of the streetlights just beyond. Half shadow, half ghostlike haze, much of the sharp edge of the impeccably clean room faded away in the dark, and swallowed the sofa like a slow-moving fog. Duo slept with some measure of peace, and for the first time in many months, his mind was empty of the ever-changing presence of the disturbing dreams he could never later recall.

Moving feet padded softly across the bare wooden floor, and a long shadow crept with the figure as it broke the hazy stream of patchwork blocks of lamplight. Heero moved unnoticed and unheard by his sleeping visitor. Pale even in the lingering shadows, the boy had donned his favorite blue jacket in the chilly night, despite however often he'd claimed the weather simply didn't bother him. Hands wedged deep in the lined pockets, he ghosted across the room with eyes that cut through the night, spying the youth tucked beneath several warm blankets on his sofa. It was only so many quiet steps to that figure, and upon arriving, Heero sunk slowly down onto the coffee table just in front of it.

Duo slept fitfully, one arm tossed above his head. Only the highest points of his face were touched by the filtering glow of the street lamp, and yet his face still seemed to stand out through the dark... He seemed less colorful than usual, drained and exhausted from the day's earlier ordeals. Even his hair seemed a little duller than most days, though it had pulled out of his braid a little as he slept, and fell across his face and pillow in a way which otherwise could have been charming.

Poised on the edge of the coffee table, Heero looked down into the face of his erstwhile friend, and pulled his hands out of his pockets to pull Duo's blanket a little higher against his chest.

"...Duo?" Heero's voice came quietly, low and rumbling from ill-use. When he got no response, he leaned a little closer, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Duo."

The American made a sudden sigh, and rolled his head a little against his tiny pillow, but soon settled again. Resigned to this, Heero sighed to himself and put out a cautious hand to dust away a few of Duo's bangs from his face.

It was easy to watch Duo's rhythmic breathing... the way his chest rose and fell through the blankets, or the faint shine along the lower curve of his lip as he breathed through a slightly parted mouth. He seemed to be dreaming of nothing at all, instead choosing the peaceful neutrality of the void. But then again, perhaps it was more out of exhaustion than lack of imagination that his eyes beneath their eyelids laid so still. He slept the sleep of a man who bore everything equally, now that the blotchy rawness of worry and exhaustion had temporarily left his face. Now, he was absolutely still and quiet... and it bothered Heero, even as he watched.

"...I... didn't expect you here so soon..." The sitting youth murmured to Duo, still close enough to touch. "I would have... gotten you a better sofa, if I'd known."

Stringing his fingers together, Heero worried on his knuckles and turned to look out the window. The falling snow cast tiny flickering shadows across the floorboards, and he smiled faintly at them... But soon enough his smile crumbled like brittle ice, and the stiff frown of before once again took it's regular place. What a joke... Already, he could feel his eyebrows irrevocably drawing together, and the lump rising in his throat. It obviously wasn't bad enough that the bile in his stomach had been burning like battery acid all day.

"...I'm sorry." When the boy spoke to Duo again, his voice was barely a whisper. "... Don't you ever use your head? Jesus Christ, Duo, can't you tell when somebody is lying to you? I wasn't supposed to see you like this. I don't want to. I don't know you."

Already, Heero's knuckles were beginning to grow white as he dug into them with gouging fingertips... and then came the curving spine of a haunch as Heero leaned in on himself, sinking lower against his knees when his elbows began to shake. Duo continued to sleep on, in silence.

"You never listened to me. _Never_." the vehement tone came away acridly on the quiet youth's whispering tongue. "So why did you listen then? ...Are you really that stupid?"

Moaning a little from the sofa, the American shifted beneath the blankets. "...you said... forever..."

Surprise took him instantly, and Heero drew up and away at the first sleep-slurred words, his back going rigid as he stared with unblinking eyes down at his settling comrade. But just as before, Duo soon stilled, breath coming and going just as evenly as in sleep. Quiet came again between them, as the soft sounds of breathing overtook what had before been a one-sided confession. Whatever it had been was dead again as the minutes solidified the silence.

At last Heero relaxed again where he sat, though instead of returning to the frown of before, he pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head, and zipped the front all the way up to his chin. Hands wedged deeply into his jacket pockets, there was nothing else to do but sink into another haunch, arms pulled closely against his torso.

Though he hadn't realized it until recently, it was the guilt which made him bow in on himself. Huffing a little, the boy felt his spine ache and his lower back tingle, but he only drew closer to his knees, feeling a strange security in the clinging airlessness of such a posture. Ironic, he thought, looking down again into the sleeping face of his once-was lover. During the war, it had always been Heero to chastize Duo for doing the same thing. Something about damaging the spine... they'd argued endlessly about it. A stupid subject to blow so much hot air about, really.

The dark helped to conceal some of Heero's face, as it contorted into a soulful expression of regret.

"Where... where are you? You're so far away... I can't even see you anymore."

Duo slept on in silence.

* * *

TBC

* * *

Author's Note: Oh man, oh man. Why am I just not satisfied with my chapters anymore? I think I'm happy with Duo's sexy dream, and his disgruntled awakening (Duo: "WTF penis? O.O) buuuuut... everyyyyythiiing eeeeelllse? What do you guys think? Got any tips? Like... you know... helpful tips? but also, PS, lets take a moment for Heero's sensitive side. He's showing regret! well, regret to the sleeping body of somebody who probably wouldn't understand if he said straight out "sorry I triggered you into having a really derranged and unfortunate proceedure that went too far and probably ruined your life forever." Because, really, there's really no good way to say that.

Anyway, thank you section! thank yous! yaaaaayyy...

My favorite reader hostilecrayon! Why are you so good at making me feel okay about my writing? Haha, can I, like, put you in my pocket and carry you around so when I'm feeling low I can just pop you out and you throw me some kind of 'feel better' party? No no, but thank you for continuously reading. I love that.

Wow, keiichisei. You totally owned a bunch of reviewers by... wow. Reviewing a whole lot. Haha, well, I'm glad you like it. XD Though your threats of stalking me give me a faintly creeped out feeling. Haha! No, just kidding! I'll update sooner, I promise.

Witchwolf, are you kidding? Did you really turn off your phone at work to read this crap? Really? Really really? Gosh, why are people so surprisingly devoted? I think you're great! Haha...

camillian, yep, Heero knows ALMOST the full scoop about Duo. Well, except for the... ehhh, well, you gotta read the next chapter.

Suiyou, 44 chapters? Jesus god, how can you write so many? I putter off around six... Anyway, yes, thank you so much! I try really hard not to make my stories like others, but I can't help the fact that I love cliche themes. Haha, but that's whats fun about it, right? Taking something old and boring and making it new and fresh?

To all other readers... good lord, you guys are great. I'm really happy to have a fan audience out there, however small. I really appreciate it! I love you! If I lived in your neighborhood, we could totally have a block party, and I would bake muffins.

Anyway, until next time. take note also, this will be hostilecrayon's special Quatre-centric chapter coming up, so put on your eating boots, because Q's a baking fiend.


	8. Resonance

Author's Note: HOLLA! HOLLAAAAAHHHH!!! I... am.. ALIVE!!! AH! Jesus god, did this chapter take for fucking ever to turn over. Of course the SECOND my very favorite fan Hostilecrayon wrote a fabulous review of Forgive and Forget did I get slapped with one bitch of a writer's block. And then with people reviewing more and more, and the pressure building, I just sort of... err.. popped. And then I moved cities and started the school year and then there was no time for anything. But this christmas break has found me with a totally unexpected and completely refreshing wave of new ideas. And lo, Forgive and Forget was born again from the darkness. And with sweet plot developments to boot.

Anyway, this chapter gives us a little taste of something new. Join me as we traverse the uncharted territory of.. (gasp) HEERO'S MEMORIES! Yes, my friends, Heero's point of view will from thus onward serve a valuable purpose. Except Heero's memories more just resurface to bitchslap him for being a stupid dick, instead of the other, softer, underlying wisps of recollection poor Duo has to contend with. Will Heero give us a deeper understanding of that mysterious night that tore our lovers ever asunder? Or will he just equivocate an already bastardized series of confusing events? (cough, option B, SHH NO DON'T LISTEN!)

I give you, my loving readers, Forgive and Forget, chapter eight however brief and insane it may be.

-Onions

ps, I'm dropping you a big clue in the first chapter. AHHH, AM I REALLY REVEALING A MAJOR PLOT ADVANCE? WHAT THE HELLLL? who am I anymore? I don't even know.

Anyway, enjoy.

* * *

** Forgive and Forget**;  
_chapter VIII; resonance_

* * *

__

The world was white-hot for the flash of a moment, and then was dark again.

Heero reeled from the blow, lost for the present and unable to regain any sense of bearing. His hands covered the slippery stickiness of blood as he felt it well up in his mouth and dribble from his nose, and only then, some long seconds later, did he feel the sharp edge of the side table at his hip, and understand once again where he was.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" The blur across from him demanded, voice harsh with both anger, as well as the bitter tint of anguish. "Why did you have to wait so long?"

Roughly, Heero pushed away from the table and dragged a sleeve across his face. The suit was black, but it would still stain. He didn't even want to think about the Victorian sofa he'd touched earlier, or the rugs he must have dripped on by now. It would cost Quatre a fortune in stain removal, that was a guarantee.

Grinning a little savagely, Heero spit a heavy lob of red saliva into the fireplace and worked on focusing his eyes again. He'd be lucky if he hadn't lost a tooth just now, and a sudden heightened sense of appreciation came over Heero for his rival. Duo could hit harder than his slim figure let on. When he was angry enough for it, anyway.

"I don't see how it was ever any business of yours."

The Japanese boy was rewarded with another flash of white pain, and this time he staggered a few feet from the force of the punch, and hit the edge of the sofa with blind hands.

"If it was never any of my business, why are you letting me hit you?" Duo demanded. His voice was nearer now, and it was obvious the American was moving closer, though Heero had once again been temporarily blinded by the force of the previous blow. The others dark figure was just becoming clear against the light of the fireplace when Heero reacted, rolling to the side just in time to miss another crippling swing. But hands dug into his arms faster than his escape, and Duo swung his rival around to slam him into the wall by the door. There Heero slid slowly down the wall to the floor, using the time Duo seemed to be backing up a little to regain some sense of sight and depth.

"Why did you wait so long?" The American demanded again, though this time his shouting voice seemed to quaver and crack beneath his anger, letting slip a true hint of the pain beneath. He was pacing, from the vibrations through the floor. Anxious, distraught, angry, sad, and furious again on top of that. He was moving constantly now. Duo to a fault, that was the truest sign of his distress. "Why did you tell me you meant forever when you only meant until next time she came around? Was this going on the whole time behind my back? What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

"You're acting like a child throwing a tantrum," the downed boy replied, burbling up through an outer layer of blood. Truthfully, any child who threw punches as hard as Duo deserved to be brought out back behind a shed and shot. Or, in Duo's particular instance, handed a gun and set to a task. But being on the receiving end was proving more trouble than the placation of submission seemed to be having. Heero made to staunch his nose with the back of his arm, swearing again in silence to himself to make no motion to retaliate. A difficult resolution all in all, with Duo's looming shadow seeming to only threaten more physical injury. "You aren't accomplishing anything. Except costing Quatre a fortune in cleaning bills."

"How long were you going to keep this a secret from me?"

Heero coughed, and sluggishly rubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. When it came away, his bangs stuck up at strange angles. Long night. Long night. This night was too long.

Duo paced closer, then back a few steps like an anxious colt, hovering above his victim only a few feet away. "How long?" he insisted.

Never. Forever. Until you forget about us.

"I swear to God, Heero... Just fucking tell me already!"

Blood tasted saltier than Heero remembered. He sniffed wet into his lungs, coughed once more, and rolled his head back against the wood paneling. "It was never a secret. I never covered anything up from you. How you choose to see the situation is entirely up to you, and no mistake of mine if you don't like what you see."

Only a partial lie. Only partially bitter coming up. Lies closest the truth were always the hardest to detect.

"Well, where the hell am I supposed to go now? Huh?" The loudest decimal of the evening by far. The Asian boy even had the decency to flinch a little at the fury behind it. "Did you even think about that, you arrogant, self-concerned son of a bitch? Did you even think about me once, or what I was supposed to do?"

"Go to Earth." Heero said thickly, serious and mocking at once."Go to Earth and go to Hilde, and stop looking back."

Outside the thick oak doors that lead to the sitting room, the guests at Quatre's birthday party spoke in a babble of many tongues. Their incomprehensible din overwhelmed any one conversation, though every now and again the cacophony was interrupted by one individual who would laugh a little louder than all the rest, or by someone bumping glasses with someone else in the name of a toast lost in the night's revelry. For some time, this was the only sound Heero heard.

And then the screeching legs of a chair being drawn up sounded the end of the fight.

Heero raised bleary eyes and stared across the richly furnished room from his position by the door. Duo sat in a simple wooden desk chair by the fire, bloody hands limp at his sides. His blue suit was mussed, and the rough-spun cotton of his jacket pulled at his hair, which shone red by the fire. And though there wasn't much light to be had, the fireplace did much to illuminate the sad curves of his contemplative face as he stared and sat for a long time doing absolutely nothing at all. For Duo, this was the end of all things. But if Heero could only push him just a little farther, it could also be the beginning of something better for him. Something innocent and free, with no strings attached. It could be a new beginning. Something better than... better than what this was between them now.

Slowly, Heero drew himself up once more. To his credit, Duo's goal had been accomplished, if it had indeed been to beat his lover into a state of absolute pulverization. Heero felt something like tenderized meat about to be packaged for sale at a butcher shop. But his feet seemed to know the way, and step by step, the ex-pilot made his way slowly across the room, until he stood above Duo's slumped figure and put out sticky fingers to touch his chin.

Duo turned his face almost willingly up to Heero, and for a moment Heero's tongue swelled in his mouth when he was face-to-face with the unnatural violet eyes he'd first come to know so well, filmed now with plaintive tears. But ever the soldier, Duo seemed to swallow those tears, and through gritted teeth pushed back the onslaught initially welling deep inside him.

"Don't leave." Duo appealed, a hand going to clutch at a bit of Heero's sleeve. "Stay. Don't leave."

Heero brushed back the sweaty bangs from Duo's forehead with a bloody hand, feeling the living, breathing creature warm beneath his fingers and wanting it worse than he'd wanted anything in his life.

"Heero, I love you, you know." The American added, in a small, simple voice. "More than anyone. More than anything."

And there it was.

Leaning close, until he could feel his own hot breath coming back up at him to tickle his lips, Heero pressed his forehead to the side of Duo's head and pulled the clutching fingers off his sleeve. With a soft voice, he would resolve this jester's romance.

"I have never loved you. I have always loved Relena. What I gave you was a soldier's sympathy. I did it for warmth, for bodily satisfaction, and for selfishness. But I have never come to you out of love. And I never will. Leave me alone, Duo. I'll do the same."

Go away. Go somewhere you belong.

Heero stood on wobbling knees, looking everywhere but at Duo's stunned face. Silence followed him on limping feet to the mirror above the side table, where he wiped his face clean as best he could with the sleeve of his jacket. As a second thought, he shed the jacket entirely, folded it neatly, and laid it over his shoulder to conceal the biggest blood stain on his shirt. And then he hobbled to the heavy oak exit, pulled back the lock, and opened the door. A final glance at Duo found the boy looking small and childlike, wide-eyed and stricken and still sitting dumbly by the fire like a dog commanded to stay against it's will. But there he stayed in silence, and there Heero left him, not knowing that when next they met, his lover would have no recollection of that day, or it's terrible resonances.

For Heero, this was the end of all things.  


* * *

The morning came deathly quiet. Heero woke to a world of pristine white outside his window as far as his eye could lead him down the street. The snow had covered everything in a chilly blanket, and the sun had not yet found it's way through the misty clouds, so silence came also with darkness that day.

He found Duo in the kitchen.

"What are you doing awake?" The Asian boy questioned, more surprised in reality than in farce.

Duo shrugged, sitting at the kitchen table in the boxers and shirt Heero had lent him the night before, and nursing a mug of hot coffee. "I don't sleep well since my accident. I think." the boy made a puzzled face, adorably rumpled by the messy state of his braid. "I mean, I don't think I slept well before, but I don't really know. I can't remember. But... anyhow, I thought I'd make some coffee so you'd have some when you got up. Then I had a cup for myself." Another face, this one bashful. "Sorry."

Heero took a seat at the table, slow and deliberate like all of his movements. "You can drink coffee. I don't care."

"Ah, well... thanks. I set a mug out for you." he pointed to the counter. There indeed sat a porcelain diner mug, next to the still-steaming coffee pot. "But, I don't eat in the morning, so, don't worry about that."

Again, for what felt like the fiftieth time since his arrival yesterday, Heero felt himself fixing Duo with a look bordering something faintly incredulous. Of course, for Heero, that look was something probably less substantial than what an average person would display. But nonetheless it was enough to pull his eyebrows up a few harrowing centimeters. It was simple to tuck the expression away when rose again to claim his cup of coffee, but it's resonance held to Heero, even if his face was blank. Duo seemed not to have noticed, anyhow.

"You didn't sleep well last night?" the standing boy questioned, pouring the hot black drink into his mug.

Duo shrugged again, staring contemplatively into his cup. "Well, actually... I sort of did sleep well. But... I woke up early for some reason. I guess 'cause there's no noise here. Hilde always cooks and feeds the dogs in the morning, so I know what time it is according to that. But when there was no noise, I thought I'd overslept when I really hadn't."

Heero disappeared into the pantry at that. Boxes and dried goods shuffled from inside the little closet. "You... seem like you really fit together with Hilde well."

"Yeah... she can be a bitch sometimes, but it's only because she's looking out for me. I really do love her, though. More than anyone. Almost more than anything, if you know what I mean... I'll bet she's going crazy right now because I didn't come home last night."

Only the crinkling of bags answered Duo, and for some time, both boys remained silent from their adjacent positions, considering things. It ended when Heero appeared once again from the closet a minute later dropped a bowl of cereal in front of the American. Flinching as bits of honeyed oats flew into the air and hit the wood of the table, Duo gave his host a questioning look.

"Eat." Heero supplied, his expression a brazen neutral. "You'll like this. Once you try it, you'll want to eat the whole box." but the boy narrowed his eyes a little at that, almost daring him to have the nerve to do such a thing. Duo ate it all the time before the war had ended, now should be no different. With stiff fingers, he shoved a spoon into the American's limp hand and pivoted for the refrigerator.

"Err..."

It was easy to ignore his guest's uncomfortable cough as he ripped the milk from the door. "You'll need your strength for the trip home. You still aren't well."

"-Ah.."

Cap off, Heero dumped a sizeable portion of milk into the bowl in front of Duo, sloshing a bit over the rim. He capped the jug again, stalked to the fridge, shelved it, and shoved it closed.

"umm,"

"I'll take you home after breakfast." The Asian boy intervened, slinging his coffee mug into the sink. "Let me get you some suitable clothes."

"okay."

Heero stalked irrevocably from the room, and silence once again filled the kitchen.

* * *

_The American was going to smell like engine oil for the rest of the day. The stains shone glossy even in his black shirt, despite the fact that Heero would have had to have been blind to have not noticed the black treads streaking the boy's arms as well. Duo enjoyed the business of building things, that much was certain. It kept idle hands busy, always moving, always honing. But it was also for eating up time. Sometimes, Heero could even spy a little glitter of loneliness in his companion's face when the boy was waist-deep in car parts, or kick-starting the engine of a motorcycle or a moped, trying to get the spark plug to catch a throw. It was Deathscythe the boy missed, in a strange and distorted fashion. The natural rhythm of it's upkeep, and the satisfaction of knowing his metal friend was as inpenetrable as a castle. As fortified as a fortress. That within it's bowels, Duo could always sleep safely and without worry, so long as maintenance was up to par. A sentiment Heero could relate to, a little stronger than maybe was necessary._

_Today was no different. Work, work. Heal and work, and live and work and heal. Or at least try to heal. Some days, watching Duo, seemed harder than others. Harder in a way that sometimes made Heero want to stop watching. Made him want to wrap his fingers around dozens of nameless throats and squeeze until he felt something substantial crack, if only to know that Duo would never have to._

_"Take that off. You're filthy."_

_"You mean this old thing?" Duo shot Heero a wolfish grin and plucked at his shirt from across the living room, dirt shadowing his forehead like a bruise. "A little grease never killed nobody."_

_"You'll get everything dirty."_

_"Oh yeah?" The American replied, popping the gum he was chewing and sounding for all the world like a normal kid. "sounds kinky."_

_Heero glared across the room at the boy for a few moments. "Don't touch the furniture."_

_"Sure, Heechan. You're the man."_

_It was only when he'd turned to the couch to settle down with the newspaper did Heero feel hands sliding around his waist. Old games. The American had always been infuriatingly quiet when he wanted. _

_Hot breath tickled at his ear. "Didn't say nothin' about touchin' people."_

_Grabbing the teasing hands around his stomach, Heero pried them away with an unsympathetic grasp and turned to face the other boy. "Go take a shower. You stink."_

_But there was only that grin, alive with the motion of gum-chewing, that met Heero's jab. Duo pushed himself forward against the other boy, rubbing against him and struggling playfully against his confinement. As predicted, the aroma of oil washed over Heero as the black fabric of Duo's shirt rumpled and ground into wrinkles against his own. It was an old shirt... one of Duo' s favorites, worn thin to the point where a hint of flesh could be seen through the delicate cotton. A band logo long since washed away was the only thing that set it aside from the boy's other plainer black shirts. Lingering in ghostly print across the fabric, the text had worn clean from the stress of a hundred thousand visits to the washer. But something like a magpie remained as what had once been the centerpiece of the design, and if one looked carefully, the image grew plainer, though at first glance there appeared to be nothing on the shirt at all._

_"You're getting me dirty."_

_Duo's grin became distinctly sexual, he pushed a caressing knee up between Heero's leg, and the motion was the beginning of the end. "promise?"_

_The day hadn't been very productive after that. Needless to say, Duo took off the offending shirt, amongst many other clothing items equally less desired. It ended up shoved thoughtlessly by a stumbling foot beneath the crackling blue leather couch as the boys fell upon it, tangling limbs, and there it stayed, even after both bodies had dried once more from sweat and cum, when neither person felt much like getting up again._

_Washed, folded, and tucked into one of Heero's bottom drawers for later, Duo never wore the shirt again, though not for want of looking._

* * *

"Where the HELL have you been?"

Duo stood in the door of the kitchen, flushed and hot from the effort of the trek home, but finding in it him to still look sheepish. Hilde would explode, that much was certain. The question was, just how much.

"I went to the corner store yesterday before the storm to get cigarettes, and got snowed in." The American offered in a reasoning voice.

Hilde was pacing back and forth across the parka floor now, distress and agitation written plainly across her face. Her tight plaid skirt did little to slow her down, though it did make her look a bit like a librarian. Duo chortled at that privately in his head, bracing himself for the forthcoming rage.

"Snowed in where? The store? And since when do you smoke? You don't smoke!"

"I do smoke."

"You don't!" Hilde insisted, still pacing. "Where did you stay?"

The American lagged a little against the door frame, sweating beneath the potato coat Hilde had outfitted him with the day before. It had managed somehow to dry out, though his other clothes had inexplicably remained damp over the night. Not to mention, they were filthy from lying in the road. Heero had given him a pair of jeans and an old beaten-up band shirt, black and worn and soft, with the faint shadow of a magpie adorning the chest. Where a stiff guy like that had gotten such a comfortable shirt was a mystery to Duo, who had found picturing Heero wearing it nearly impossible. A sweater on top of that, partnered with his coat, and Duo had been sufficiently dressed for the trip home. But, considering the fact that this time he hadn't taken a nap in the snow, not a lot could have made his situation as poor as yesterday.

"A guy from the lot sale in October gave me a place to stay. I was too far to get home. I called, but the phone was busy, like it was off the hook or something." A pause, and an argumentative finger jabbed out at the girl. "Which isn't my fault!"

Hilde was still flustered, and her body language showed it. "What guy? You went to somebody's house that you don't even know? What if he'd wanted to kill you or something?"

Duo grinned a little at that, remembering how he'd asked Heero the same question, except about himself instead. "Why don't you ask him yourself? He's out in the yard."

The American stepped out of the open door and in to the kitchen, revealing the shape of a boy crouched down a few feet into the yard by their brown and black boxer, scratching the dog's ears in a vaguely affectionate fashion.

Heero's eyes lifted and met Hilde's, and silence consumed the kitchen.

"You don't yell at strangers?" The Asian calmly inquired of the suddenly petrified girl, in a voice that was deceptively quiet. "Someone might think you're trying to keep a secret."

Quirking an eyebrow curiously, Duo peered between his suspiciously tense girlfriend, and his stonyfaced rescuer. The silence stretched on.

"Where's the hat I made Duo that goes with his coat?" Hilde questioned in a voice blanded by shock. It seemed like the only thing her swelling tongue was going to let her say.

A barrage of thundering footsteps rushing from the living room pulled only Duo's eyes from the strange meeting across the kitchen thresh hold. Somebody else in the house? Who, in this weather? That was strange, considering that most people were snowed up to their assholes as far as the eye could see. Duo puzzled at the sound, and was the sole witness to the entrance of the fourth party. A blonde boy of Duo's approximate age, with astonishingly blue eyes, clutching a print-out and babbling in a high voice as he pushed through the door and into the kitchen.

"Hilde, I just got off the com with the doctor and he tol-" The strange boy stopped abruptly, as still as a deer struck motionless by a pair of car headlights as all eyes in the kitchen snapped to his figure.

Duo frowned, staring at the stranger with curious eyes, having missed the crack Heero's knees made when the Asian had abruptly risen to a stand somewhere behind him.

"Who are you?"

The blonde seemed tongue-tied for a moment, gave Hilde a floundering look, and answered. "I'm Quatre."

"Oh. I'm Duo. Nice to meet you."

Again, the blonde gave a floundering look, but this time it became something like lingering shock as he stared out into the yard at Heero. Heero stared back, eyes unblinking and with a definitively chilly edge, his own limbs as stiff and unyielding as Quatre's, while Hilde's lips tightened into a thin wiry line, posture as still and hard as brick.

Duo shifted from foot to foot in the deathly silence of the kitchen, his own eyes bouncing between all three parties with a growing sense of curiosity and suspicion. "You called the doctor when I didn't come back, didn't you, Hilde?"

Once more the lingering silence stretched taut between all people present. But when Duo settled his eyes accusingly on his pixie-faced roommate, and all other questions seemed suddenly unavoidable, Hilde's expression of stiff alarm gave a sudden jerk... and then a twitch, and then the shuddering moments dissolved into the rippling sounds of laughter. It came low and warbling at first, spaced out and with a hint of fear and disbelief. But time rolled the sound on stronger, and then the girl was laughing out loud, in long, hard, barking gasps, hysterical enough to bend her thin frame over until her pale hands came up to grasp her stomach and her eyes ran wet with tears. Hilde laughed hard, and she laughed alone in the silence of the kitchen like the screaming and whooping of a wild monkey, even as the rest of the room regarded her with the notion that she'd gone slightly insane. She laughed looking at Quatre, and then at Heero, each time she passed her eyes on causing some new level of private humor to rise up and fuel her with the energy she needed to raise the volume of her mirth up to yet another decimal.

Hell was coming for all of them, in a host of little ways.

"What's so fuckin' funny?" Duo demanded, feeling his anger rise.

For Hilde, it was the beginning of the end, though Duo would only later come to know it. For now, there was only the lie. The outside of it, the inside, and it's resonances.

* * *

TBC

* * *

**Author's Note**: AHHHHHH!!!!

ummm, yes.

This chapter in a nutshell:

Heero: Im in ur shortz makin ur kidz  
Duo: wut?  
Heero: uh, nothing  
Hilde: I wanna fuck sum bitches strait upz!  
Duo: wut?  
Quatre: I am in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am very awkward.  
Heero: I am planning a murder in my head. I will be strangling a bitch. Or two.  
Duo: wut?  
Hilde: THIS DRAMATIC IRONY IS TOO MUCH FOR ME!  
Quatre:uhh, maaaybe I should go...  
Heero: no, I'll shoot you before you can leave.  
Duo: wait a minute... somebody is keeping SECRETS from me?!  
the planet earth suddenly explodes

TBC

I R be writin sum good stuffz. Yall come back next chapter. R&R if uz still out there. (umm... yes I am planning on being some kind of published writer. why do you ask?)


	9. The Request

Author's Note: Hi guys... does anybody actually still remember this story? I forgot about it for a while, but was digging through my old writing files and found enough interesting drafted material to make up like three new chapters! :O ! so to apologize for my loooong absence, I've put a flashback into this chapter that sequentially probably could have been better somewhere else, but has, gasp, GRAPHIC SEX and wiener licking to boot. HYEAH fangirls, this is for you.

anyway, story-wise, don't worry for any of you who actually give a dick; plot is imminently arriving.

-onions

* * *

Forgive and Forget

chapter IX; The Request

* * *

"I wasn't told."

"Heero, it's not as if he's died."

"you didn't tell me."

Quatre's desk glowed red beneath the Arab's pale hands in the gaze of the winter sun. The blonde sat in silence for the most part, looking down at the surface of the desk and allowing his company to speak first. Trowa Barton sat folded into the crimson armchair by the window, looking sharp and dangerous for all his mild-manneredness. Together, the boys looked like a matching set; both wore clothes of the same make. Quatre was resplendent as usual in a crisp, fresh collared shirt. Today it was leaf green to Trowa's brown, but they both buttoned up the front with little delicate white dots. Pearline buttons. Buttons that shone in the afternoon light.

Bringing a hand up to muffle a soft cough, Trowa continued. "He hasn't been killed. He just isn't someone we know anymore."

"Nobody... _nobody_ told me." Heero sat away from them, drawn back from the window by quite a few feet. Settled in the darkest corner of the room, the soldier's normally pale skin had become something chalkier against the tendrils of black the shadows made of his hair. He wore the same inky blue jacket he'd been seen in for every encounter since the end of the war, and coupled with a pair of dark denim jeans, Heero had become very much a living part of the shade of the room. It was an anomaly that he'd found the darkest patch of floor, considering the light of the rest of the room; The sun was shining brightly through the east window of Quatre's office, just behind Trowa's shoulder. Snow made the glare a little brighter than usual, and it cast shadows of horses across the pale ceiling from the iron figurines sitting on the middle ledge of the wood frame. Outside, a tinkling chime sung in time with icy leaves as a low wind whispered across the perfect white landscape. The interior of the office dropped elegant black shadows against the brightness of the day, and made the top of Trowa's head into a delicate silhouette across the glass panes.

"You're overreacting." Trowa said again with a vague sense of irritation. He laid his ankle across his thigh, and let out a short, quiet sigh into the tense air. "This isn't Quatre's fault, so stop staring at him like it is."

"Why wasn't I told?" Another stoic re-phrasal. From the corner, Heero's eyes grew icier.

The Arab coughed, and finished off the last of the tea in his cup, settling it painfully slowly back in the saucer. "I was helping Hilde find Duo yesterday, for the record. He wasn't supposed to be with you, because... well... nobody could find you!" Ever since his accidental encounter with Heero Yuy the day previously, he'd been feeling markedly guilty. It showed in the way he handled his tea, tenuous and shaking. "I suppose that's the primary reason this is catching you so off-guard... nobody knew where you were."

Watching the other quiet figure nod, agreeing with Quatre's words, Heero settled back a little, and decided to listen. Though Trowa's face showed the faint wrinkles of displeasure, he was generally someone of little nonsense. He could be trusted to be honest, that much was agreed between them all, despite the nature of his sporadic comings and goings. Though the circus generally kept him busy, Heero hadn't been all that surprised to have found the quiet youth here earlier in the day, when they'd first come in. When it came to the subject of Quatre, Heero had always secretly suspected the latin boy of a greater personal involvement. This was also considering that to lie would have been a great moral affront to someone like Quatre Winner anyway. They were too good together. It was a little sickening.

Quatre hesitantly attempted an explanation of greater detail. Always willing to work as a moderator, the blonde's voice was honeyed with a desire for understanding. "We weren't purposefully leaving you out, if that is what you've concluded... You were involved just the same as the rest of us."

The Asian let loose a derivative snort.

"Duo's procedure wasn't a decision made out of the blue." Quatre continued, standing up behind his desk to shuffle through a stack of papers. "We've discovered that he'd been keeping a private account for quite some time, in order to pay for the procedure. It was quite expensive. Illegal even, by the hands of many doctors, except to high authority officials already from within the system. Money from the junk shop went into it where it could be spared, but he also had been skimming off of the tops of local businesses for the last month and a half in order to connect his loose ends. His plan had been solid quite some time before his actual appointment. Going over his records, it can be deduced that it may even have started as early as my sixteenth birthday."

Quiet from within his corner of shadow, Heero's jaw twitched the slightest bit.

"So it isn't as if we all knew something that you didn't. All of this is relatively new to us as well. The thing is...just... ah..." Trowa and Quatre exchanged significant glances, and the Arab princeling poked at the empty cup of tea by his hand. "Well, Duo asked us not to discuss it with you."

"How could he do that, if he was keeping all of this a secret from the beginning?" The Japanese youth demanded, his voice chilly with danger. The teacup clattered nervously.

"Well, The doctors gave them to us... he, Duo I mean... he told us in, ah..." Quatre stammered over his words, obviously trying to soften whatever blow was about to come, and failing. "In... in our letters."

For the space of a few moments, a vibrating silence rung between all three boys, and Heero became the focal point of a strange triangle of staring eyes.

Slowly, and with a bite of resign, the Asian leaned slightly forward in his seat and curled his fingers around the edge of the desk. Quatre collapsed heavily back into his own slightly more ornate chair, and set to shifting uncomfortably when Heero locked eyes with him. His friend's churning cobalt stare pinioned him down, and when Heero spoke some long moments later, his whisper of a voice rung clear in the deafening quiet.

"What letters?"

* * *

--

* * *

_The evening was coming on when they first walked across the living room floor together, shadows gouging black across the burning orange of the sinking sun. The empty house showed a lot of promise, they'd agreed. Hilde had come earlier that day to scout the premises and had offered a positive report. Though the structure of the house itself was a little shakier than they could have preferred, the roomy lot was big enough to accept the trade scrap they'd already accumulated, and had space for much more. There was even a sturdy looking wooden fence which circled the yard, promising security and stability for the weighted debris which would inevitably come to pile there. It was a good location, near the city but still clinging to the outskirts of one of the poorer neighborhoods they'd originally looked into because of price. Most of all, it was affordable. It was empty now, but one day, it would be a home. _

_"I figured the couch could go there." Duo gestured at a flat of wall beneath a narrow window. The wood floors were burning orange from the light of the dying day. _

_Heero shrugged complacently. "If you really want to keep that couch." _

_"What's wrong with it? I love that couch! I broke it in myself!" The American protested, swinging a fist out to pop Heero in the arm. "Damn leather nearly took the backs of my legs off last summer when it was sitting in direct sun, but a house just isn't no home without a little broke-down comfort, they always say."_

_"who always says?"_

_"'They' do! They! Them."_

_Drawing back in resignation, Heero shook his head. "Fine. Keep your couch, I don't care."_

_"I will, damn it! I'll keep it."_

_Floor boards creaking noisily, Heero turned away from Duo and stuck his hands in his battered navy blue jacket, becoming a broad flat of black and a wild tuft of hair against the mandarin living room walls. They walked together for a while, tracing the perimeter of the room with their feet and eyes, and Duo watched the sliver of his lover's turned face as the evening glow slid across him. _

_Heero walked through hues of shifting gold, and dark blue shadows fell beneath his bangs, and beneath his feet in deep pools, matching the serious expression his face had lapsed into. More than anything today, the Japanese youth radiated a sense of anxious anticipation. Despite however slight Heero's moods ever really appeared, for someone who encompassed 'Heero watching' into a list of favored pastimes, the change was a strange and noticeable one. _

_"Hey." Duo's hand shot out to grab a bit of sleeve off the other boy, as they neared the kitchen. "what's with the blues?" _

_Heero stopped, turning his head slightly to peer over his shoulder at the place where Duo's fingers annoyingly clung to his jacket. For a moment he didn't say anything at all. _

_"Why so moody, Heechan?" Duo prodded again, jerking at his friend's sleeve. "You gonna puke or somethin'? Well, you better not be getting sick, 'cause I'm not goin' to Quatre's birthday party all alone with Hilde. She drinks like a fish, and that crazy bitch is heavy! You gotta help me carry her home." _

_"Home." Heero mimicked. _

_"Yeah, home. What, were you expecting us to run a business from opposite sides of the continent?" _

_That made Heero look up all the way. For a few lingering moments, he traced Duo's face with unreadable eyes. _

_Duo stared back, bits of his hair coming loose and shining gold as the glow of the sunset illuminated him from behind. _

_"Your mouth is too smart for your own good." Heero said simply, and kissed the other boy. _

_It was easy at first to reciprocate. Duo leaned his face up the minute angle required to bring their mouths to the same level, and sweetly allowed his lips to be nibbled on. But when Heero's strong hands came up to push at his arms, the American felt the first tremors of something more serious. They hit the living room wall together with a soft thud, idle feet pushing sluggishly backwards until there was nowhere else left to go. And then Heero was in his mouth, caressing the insides of his cheeks and wracking their tongues together like he'd done so often when different businesses had pulled them apart from time to time. _

_Feeling fingers beginning to rove, Duo pushed up against his lover playfully, writhing a little as Heero's grip tangled into the buttons of the American's jacket. It was still winter, but even in the chilly, vacant house, Duo was beginning to feel the overheated sensation of summer as it gathered in a slight dew across his skin, pocketed close to his flesh by too many layers of cloth. _

_"What's wrong with you?" Duo questioned when Heero's mouth moved to his ear, attempting to stifle a smile. "Whad I do?"_

_Heero answered by sliding his tongue along the perfect outer shell of the ear between his teeth, and moving to suckle hotly on the lobe. Duo groaned, stooping a little as a coil began to wind tightly at the base of his groin. Erogenous zones were free territory between them, but it was always considered a jab when they were so mercilessly exploited in public. Though in truth, the braided boy had made that rule up when he'd realized how susceptible he truly was._

_Panting a little, Duo pawed weakly at Heero's shoulder. "Hey.. .no fair."_

_"Undo your belt." Heero commanded, low and earthy in Duo's ear. Wiry fingers pushed open his thick jacket, and Duo trembled when they slid down to pull his shirt out of his waistband. _

_"huh?" _

_"Do it." _

_"What, right here?"_

_Pinning Duo with a heavy, lidded look, Heero ran unhesitating fingers down across the tenting bulge in the American's' pants. Gasping slightly, the sweating youth swore and wriggled back against the wall. When his vision cleared again, Heero was still staring with that strange, sultry insistence, and Duo found he needed little more to convince him. _

_"Alright already!" he batted with shaking fingers at Heero's hand. "Just, gimmie a second..."_

_But when Duo's hands kept missing their mark, and slipping past the right notch, Heero pushed them away and sunk to his knees to do the job himself. The belt buckle came open quickly and efficiently, and for a moment Heero knelt there, fingers prone on the band of Duo's pants, and turned his eyes up to look at his lover. Duo watched back with a sense of vague wonder, lidded beneath his mounting heat, leaning heavily against the wall. A hand went out to touch the kneeling boy's cheek, and for the space of a few shaky breaths, the American gently traced the lines of Heero's face._

_"What is it that's-" _

_Duo was cut off before he'd finished his sentence when Heero yanked his pants down in a single rough motion. Gasping, he reeled against the wall as the Japanese boy fell hungrily on him in a single wave of throbbing warmth. The braided teen immediately tangled his fingers in the wild, auburn hair he found, and he clung tightly as Heero's warm lips inched farther and farther back along the aching length of his pulsing member. It was strange, in the vague outer recognition of Duo's conscious, that Heero was so willing. Or, more specifically, so quick to smother the resistance he met. But as Duo leaned his head against the empty wall and gasped what little air would come to him, the strangeness of the situation became irrelevant. Everything that mattered was Heero's mouth on him, teasing, sucking, and stroking in only the way a lover already well acquainted with another lover's body could fully understand. _

_The tongue on his cock was running underneath the gentle v of the head, and then with a pop, the mouth was gone. Duo groaned audibly, a low moan that resonated a deep displeasure. But when he looked down again, Heero had fixed him with the same sultry look as before. It was as if his lover were willing him to acknowledge the moment by the lust in his eyes, and with slow, specific gestures, he stuck two fingers in his mouth. A rippling sense of anticipation tore through Duo and he steeled himself involuntarily, even as his length twitched and hardened at the sight of it._

_When it came, it was fast. Duo barely managed to smother a groan as Heero's fingers pushed inside of him and warm lips sucked him hard, the simultaneous actions making the American's head spin. It was the scissoring fingers which were the worst, pulling and stretching tight muscle that had no desire to shift. But as Heero's reaching tongue massaged along the underside of his member, the invasive fingers pushed deeper and deeper inside, and they grew closer to the secret sweet spot both knew was to be found somewhere within. _

_"Hee- uhhhn!" Duo moaned, jerking as Heero finally found the pebble of his prostate. But instead of waiting for the adjustment, the kneeling boy began to mercilessly rub against it, and the American let out another astonished cry and bowed a little to cling more tightly to the head of hair at his waist. It was only a few more moments of this before he was pushed hard back against the wall, and with a final unforgiving thrust from Heero, Duo yelled out in a strangled voice and came hard into his lover's waiting mouth. _

_The American panted thickly in the aftermath, sagging on bending knees, still heavy against the wall. "Je-... Jesus... Christ..." the words came slow and lazy, and a little bit incredulous as he finally turned his eyes on Heero again. Still on his knees, the other boy was spitting the cum into his right hand. His left came up to wipe his mouth clean when he noticed Duo watching, and he shot back a calculative look. _

_"Wha... what's with... you today?" Duo panted thickly, eyebrows arching up in wonder. "You're... acting strange." _

_"You thought that was bad?" _

_"No! No... God, no..." The braided boy replied. "it's just... you... you just..." _

_But as what seemed was Heero's style for the day, he cared little for waiting for Duo to finish talking. Shooting out his free hand, he took hold of Duo's wrist and pulled him down onto the floor. In his jellied state, it was an easy maneuver, and the American immediately tottered over... half in the living room, and half on the cold checkered tile of the kitchen, Duo rolled over, in a daze, just in time to witness Heero expertly removing the rest of his pants. They felt soft as the slid away, despite the fact that his socks remained, even after the purge. He bid a fond farewell to them as his lover tossed them into the corner, and began unbuckling his own jeans. Heero was weird like that... if it wasn't spandex, it was denim. Jeans or nothing, and as he lay sprawled and waiting, Duo lamented that fact. Jeans were too scratchy for his taste, sometimes. Especially in situations like this. _

_"Do you have a..?" the prone boy questioned, wriggling out of his oversized jacket just enough so that it was almost like a blanket to lie on. _

_Heero nodded, and reached into his back pocket. "Ah." the condom wrapper was gold, and it glinted in the evening light when the boy stuck it between his teeth for momentary storage. A few quick yanks of his own, and he was free of the uncomfortable constrictive tent of his jeans. Duo watched quietly, both admiring and wondering at Heero's full state of arousal. Was he really so badly in the thrall of his own desire? He hadn't so much as been touched once today. Not yet, anyway. _

_The motions were so familiar by now that Duo knew them by heart. Accepting Heero into his space, he loosely wrapped his legs around his lover and waited as Heero tore the condom wrapper viciously open with his teeth. The war had been a hard time, for both of them, and they'd both agreed to taking precautionary measures, from the very beginning._

_"Do you need a hand?" The American questioned, half a smile playing across his mouth. _

_Heero paused a moment to glance up, but quickly resumed his task again. "No, I got it." He assured, lips still plump and raw from his previous pleasurable task. _

_The jacket did little to cushion them from the hard ground. But it wasn't as cold as the tile of the kitchen, and so for that Duo was thankful. When Heero finally came down over him to lean on his forearms, it was the warmth of his body that finally threw thoughts of the rest of the world away again. The living room was still lit with gold behind them, and Heero's figure was a shadow surrounded by that glowing halo._

_His right hand came down quickly and efficiently as he leaned on his side, and Duo gasped as a wet hand encompassed his flaccid length again, pumping it back to life with skillful caresses. When it was big enough, he pushed their erections together and coated them both in the thick, white semen still in his hand. Slowly, Heero pumped them together, until Duo was writhing again, arching up into the touch, hunger crazed and frantic. The Japanese boy even had the decency to smile just slightly, when Duo's wriggling turned to moaning. _

_"Ah! Ah, Heero... Come on..." _

_"Don't seem so desperate." _

_"Please!" Duo supplied immediately, tossing his head as Heero slid them together. "Jesus Christ! Please, please! What the fuck do you want me to say?"_

_"You know what I want you to say." _

_"Put it in now?" _

_"No." _

_"Oh, come on!" it was getting harder and harder to form an argument through his haze, and Duo could tell that Heero knew it. "Alright! alright already... fuck! I'll do it! Just..." _

_The boy found himself wiggling again, unable to keep still, until Heero's strong hands slid up his arms, and pinned his wrists above his head. His expression was smoldering, shadowed with an intensity that booked for no deterrents. Duo felt hotter than he had in ages. It was strange, and dangerous, and sexy too, all rolled together to be there as they were just then... on the verge of everything on the floor in a house they didn't even own. But it was Heero's mood that really made it... Because it was something more now than simply 'serious', or maybe 'a little bit distracted'. It was the untouchable attention of a mission; the focused pain of great concentration that Heero only wore out in the field. That was why it had taken so long to identify... it was an organized desperation. _

_"What's wrong with you?" The question was like a revelation. _

_"Say it." _

_Duo flushed a little, and looked away. "...I ...want you." he finally muttered. _

_Heero's hands dug a little harder against his wrists. "What?" _

_"I want you!" The American said it louder this time, almost mad. "Shit, what do you think I am, Heero, a teenage girl?"_

_Heero's response wasn't vocal, but immediately effective as he ground down into Duo's waiting erection with his own, dragging sweating flesh against sweating flesh with an excruciating slowness. Duo's head rolled back, and he was lost in his own breath. _

_"I know what you are." The words were simple, quiet. Finally, Duo's wrists were released, and Heero's hands slid up the side of the American's leg, pulling it up over a shoulder. "Say it again."_

_Why did this feel somehow like a mission specific? Putting out a tentative hand, Duo brushed the tips of his callused fingers lightly across Heero's brow. His hair tickled the American's knuckles, and he thought briefly on what his partner would look like with a shorter haircut. Gentle fingers. Softness. But silence. _

_Heero shifted back and pushed forward, replying once again with motion as the tip of his erection sunk slowly into the boy on the floor. Duo's hand had dropped at that, as well as his eyelids, until they both were reduced to bristling, trembling flesh, incapable of speech. _

_Time distorted after that. Words and thoughts were lost in a haze of physical gratification, no more complex than an animalistic groan now and again. Or the rough, ragged sounds that Duo occasionally managed to drag out of Heero when he would squeeze a certain way. They both clawed at one another with nails and teeth, taking no account for gentleness or caution. But Duo never could entirely forget Heero's strangeness that night. That odd, smothered pain that hid behind what only could have been desperation. They were all desperate. But Heero had always just been the best about not showing it. At least, never like that. Never desperate for another person. _

_The sun had sunk entirely by the time they were finished, lying spent and sticky in a puddle on Duo's jacket. Heero laid with his head cradled on the inside of the American's arm, Duo spread on his side. For the moment it seemed as if the more stoic of the two had gone to sleep; Heero's eyes were closed, and his breathing had evened out into something peaceful. He seemed calmer, now. More relaxed... but this peace was also a little like the exhausted rest of a child who has spent the afternoon in furious tears. This now was the quiet aftermath a completed mission. _

_Duo ran his fingers along the lines of Heero's face, examining all of his already too-familiar crevices. _

_"I want you." he whispered, quiet, and mostly to himself. "...I want you."_

_The sound of crickets from outside the window surrounded them, and for a while, they slept like that._

* * *

--

* * *

The last light of the dying day stretched out across the floor of Heero's living room. Having not bothered to turn on the overhead lights as of yet, the boy himself stood by the window, and watched cars trundle slowly through the icy mush on the streets below. The snow still cast bright reflections up across the faces of the building, but as the sun crept closer to the horizon, the dark rose up from the ground in sharp, angular crevices, and snuck black bars of night over the civilians still out and about. Soon everything would be black, and Heero would have to fumble his way back down the hall, and turn on his light.

The envelope in his hands felt too dry.

Licking his lips, Heero turned away from the window and paced into the middle of his living room. The letter went round and round in his fingers as he traversed the blocks of light and shadow his window frame painted across the floor. Back and forth, his shadow followed him everywhere, dark and silent and foreboding.

Callused fingers ran along the top of the letter, feeling the dull fold of the paper, and the resistance where it had been sealed across the back. It was dirty, for one thing. Heero had known immediately that it had come from Duo, because of that. Finger prints still shone oily on the corners where the American had pressed down the sticky side and closed the envelope, and for a minute, it had felt a little like handling a bit of the old, living Duo again. Looking at the paper, the casual carelessness of the mess spoke something of Duo's carefree nature that had hurt to see. It was a reminder of a past that no longer existed. And if what Quatre and Trowa had told him was right, this letter really was the last remaining artifact of the life and times of Duo Maxwell. Though it hadn't been the only letter, it was the last one to be opened.

Heero let out a low, shallow breath, and brought the envelope up to his face. His hands had been making this a difficult task. This was the fourth time the paper had risen to be read, and the soldier had to mentally battle down his desire to drop the letter on the table again. Once the seal was broken, he would have to read whatever was inside. And then the Duo Maxwell that had existed during the war would at last be finished. His reality would dissolve into the archives of memory, and Heero would have no other choice but to yield to that fact. The gentle visions of Duo that he'd stored in a secret place far beneath the surface of his own reality would forever be overshadowed by the cruel words of their last meeting, and the soldier would have to give in at last to his own mental accusations. Like adversaries met on the battlefield, Heero had efficiently slaughtered Duo Maxwell.

The paper ripped loudly as Heero stuck a thumb underneath the seal, and pulled it up. Perhaps it would be the same as Quatre's letter, or Trowa's... Heero had been allowed to read them too, despite the blonde's initial hesitancy. They had been well-collected, well phrased letters. They had been kind, and just a little bit witty... enough to take the edge off of what had actually been very serious. They had spoken of friendship and regret, but also about a desire for a better life, and the hope that he would be aided in this final mission as a soldier, in order to tie up all of his loose ends and be done. But, just as Quatre had mentioned, they had also requested that Heero himself be quietly left out of the plan. The reason had not been mentioned, though Heero was confident that he knew the exact moment in time in which Duo could have decided such a thing. That night... That night, Duo had looked so lost... his blue suit askew across his shoulders and blood on his knuckles, sitting by the fire, doing nothing at all.

Sending a finger across the underside of the seal, the paper tore fully open.

The headlights of a car sent a shifting patch of light sliding across the opposite wall as Heero pulled the sheet of notebook paper out of the filthy envelope, and smoothed it open. Duo's messy chicken scratch gouged inky black lines across the paper, and the light off the snow made it faintly blue in Heero's fingers as he read;

_'Dear Heero,_

_fuck off, you fucking piece of shit. _

_Love you, and hoping to never see you again, _

_Duo' _

--

* * *

TBC

* * *

author's note: ooooohhhhh! duo's ultra burn through time and space. what a douche.

anyway, the more I write heero, the more he becomes this really gentle, soft guy who has just been pushed way too hard. he's fucked up because he was killing people before he even hit puberty. but secretly, underneath all that un repairable human refuse, there's the good heart of a nice fella. :D which works out considering my duo in this endless epic tale of lost love is equally broken. hooray damaged goods! hooray for the human heart!

come back soon, readers. I miss you.


End file.
